News

On 15 May 2015, UNI Europa organized the first meeting to discuss working conditions, trade union challenges and ongoing campaigns in the two bigger discounters in Europe: Aldi and Lidl. Both German based, Aldi and Lidl entered into a price war in Germany where, together with other similar competitors, they are gaining more and more in terms of market share and turnover according to a recent study carried out by Ver.di in Germany.

30 trade union activists and leaders from the following countries have participated: Belgium, Czech Republic, Finland, France, Germany, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, the Netherlands, Poland and Slovakia.

Participants welcomed the organization of a trade union network in order to, initially exchange information and share experiences but with a more ambitious objective to reach a common strategy, to build a better dialogue with the company, increase the membership base and as a consequence improve working conditions at both companies.

The results of a survey carried out by UNI Europa on working conditions, social dialogue and trade unions actions amongst 11 countries in Europe shows similar patterns can be summarized as follows.

• Increasing market share and sales volume, good performance and profit margin everywhere/ harsh competition on lowest price
• Employment growth but lots of part-time and fixed contracts are used to hire new employees
• Low trade union membership also in very unionized countries where the union membership is below the average for the sector
• Poor or lack of social dialogue except for Belgium, Finland and Denmark and to a certain extent Italy
• Working conditions: constant demands from company for maximum flexibility; lots of pressure and stress at work; only minimum legal requirements are respected; health and safety problems were widely reported.
• Trade union actions and bargaining: few ongoing or future organizing activities; difficulties to organize; a few collective bargaining negotiations going on; retaliation of trade union/

During the meeting, trade union representatives from the Netherlands, Germany, Poland and Belgium presented recent trade union campaigns against Lidl and Aldi. In the Netherlands, a week of campaign is organized each year. This year the Dutch Union will present to the management a report that shows the negative health and safety conditions under which Lidl employees are obliged to work. In Belgium, they were successful in mobilizing members to stop Aldi from opening shops on Sunday on the Belgian coasts. Key to the success of the Belgian campaign was the choice of the issue, shop opening hours, and a very good membership base.

An Action Plan was agreed at the end of the meeting and tasks were shared among the most active members of the group which includes: a common press release, a list of joint requests to improve working conditions at both Aldi and Lidl and the setting up of a facebook page to share information of national campaigns, ongoing negotiations and/or actions.