News

WestRock trade union colleagues from US, Asia, Europe, Australia and Latin America, met on 20th April 2018 in London, UK. The meeting adopted a plan to establish a global alliance of all unions representing WestRock employees around the world.

A larger trade union conference will be held on 22-25 August in the USA. At that August meeting it is expected that all WestRock unions from around the world will participate in order to formally launch the global trade union alliance.

The key objective of the new alliance will be to jointly commit to a series of actions to build international solidarity, and to establish a formal, recognised mechanism for industrial relations at the global level with WestRock management.

After a series of major acquisitions, WestRock is now the second largest company in the industry. WestRock has recently purchased Multi-Packaging Solutions and KapStone. These two multinationals were present in several countries and are highly unionised.

The new alliance will bring all of those workers together. The unions recognise the on-going efforts by the company to implement high-quality social conduct policies whilst promoting employee engagement throughout its operations.

The unions believe that the new global alliance can support this company direction and be the key partner in its implementation. The two global unions, UNI and IndustriALL will jointly coordinate the preparations for the large August meeting and all on-going alliance activities.

Between the physical meetings, the alliance will continue to communicate and support each other’s efforts in bargaining and organising, as well as monitor the company’s industrial relations behaviour at all sites.