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Kimberly-Clark Venezuela tells its employees that it is pulling out of the country leaving them jobless via SMS and a voice message.

UNI Graphical & Packaging stands in solidarity with the dismissed employees and reiterates that no worker deserves this treatment from an employer.

On Friday 8 July the Maracay Kimberly-Clark’s plant management sent the personnel home saying the machines would be stopped until Monday due to repair work. The next day the employees received text messages from the company, inviting them to phone number 0-800-612-3796 to receive important news. Then, workers found a voice message telling them Kimberly-Clark had indefinitely halted their operations in Venezuela, ending the labour relationship with them and transferring the severance pay over bank deposits.

Workers started gathering in front of the factory’s gates. Among tears and anger, hundreds of men, women and children wandered what their future would be. Nobody was there to give an answer. No Kimberly-Clark’s representative was present at the facilities. Only the Kimberly-Clark Venezuela Union General Secretary Yirven Laucho and the Cardboard, Paper and Graphical Industry Workers Federation President Egle Sánchez, faced the situation. Their message to the workers was: “United we’ll find a solution”.

Between 21-24 July, UNI Graphical & Packaging Head Javier Carlés and the Sectorial Regional Director Marvin Largaespada, visited Venezuela. They met the workers and Kimberly-Clark union leaders, who described what happened. Yirven Laucho stated that, “Until this day we are astounded on the way Kimberly-Clark treated us. We had an excellent relationship with the corporation. Months ago we signed the industry’s best collective agreement. We have labourers, white collar workers and engineers in shock. The company was like their family and it abandoned them”.

Javier Carlés expressed similar astonishment, saying that “Kimberly-Clark, UNI Graphical & Packaging and its affiliates have a good relationship around the world. I can understand that a company finishes its business in a country. But the chosen way to conclude the working relationship in Venezuela lacked respect and dignity”. At the same time, Marvin Largaespada indicated that “UNI Americas Graphical & Packaging will address all its affiliates to inform about the events and mobilise their solidarity with the one thousand brothers and sisters fired from Kimberly-Clark Venezuela”.