Lidl International Campaign, Europe's fastest-growing discount chain abuses workers Options

[Tanya]

In the spirit of Tolpuddle:

my trade union, ver.di, is working with the international trade union federation UNI Commerce to put pressure on the deep discount chain Lidl to improve its treatment of employees:

http://lidl.verdi.de/lidl_international

This post has been edited by Tanya: Jul 17 2006, 10:59 AM

[Tanya]

This was in this weekend's International Herald Tribune:

In Germany, U.S. model is tough sell
By Carter Dougherty International Herald Tribune
FRIDAY, AUGUST 4, 2006

CALW, Germany After a long, bitter fight, Sybille Waidelich's job at a major German grocer disappeared at the end of June. But she is not shedding any tears over the fact that she no longer labors at Lidl, a supermarket chain that is transforming the industry in Germany, and, increasingly, other parts of Europe.

Over much of the past year, Calw, a tiny town of picturesque timbered houses nestled in the Black Forest, witnessed a bare-knuckle labor battle of the sort that Germany seldom sees.

Waidelich, 28, found herself in court last summer with Lidl over its decision to close one of the few of its stores in Germany where workers had organized representation. The fight ended in something akin to a draw June 30 when her role as a leader of employees ended and she bid Lidl an unremorseful goodbye.

"I just don't want to work for a place like that," Waidelich said during an interview. "Months and months of fighting was enough for my nerves."

Lidl, a privately owned discount supermarket chain that has grown throughout Europe at a blazing speed over the past five years, has become a new front for organized labor and other activists who dispute the notion that cheaper is always better.

In much the same way that Wal-Mart Stores has bred a tenacious army of critics in the United States, who accuse it of miserly wages and minimal benefits, Lidl is charged with a distaste for the kind of worker-protection rules that most Germans take for granted. That has galvanized its critics in Europe.

Lidl has jarred union activists, reminding them that their success a generation ago in winning labor-friendly legislation offered no guarantees for the future in the shifting landscape of the German economy. They are now on a quest to change Lidl by organizing the kinds of employee groups that Waidelich helped run in Calw.

"Bringing pressure to bear is something that we have learned from the kinds of Wal-Mart campaigns being undertaken in the United States," said Agnes Schreieder, who is directing a campaign against Lidl for Vereinte Dienstleistungsgewerkschaft, or ver.di, the largest German services union. "Lidl, unfortunately, requires the same kind of treatment."

Activists in Britain, where unions recently secured a recognition agreement and a voice in health and safety issues at ASDA, Wal-Mart's subsidiary there, see parallels in what they are doing and what ver.di is trying to do in Germany.

"The big corporate supermarkets have come to have the same basic business model," said Matthew McGregor, a campaigner at ASDA Watch, which has close ties with its American counterpart, Wal-Mart Watch. "You can debate about the individual companies, but if the only thing that matters is price, that's still a problem."

With its 2,700 stores in Germany, Lidl follows the simple, but profitable, formula of packing a limited number of low-priced products into its small urban stores. Schwarz Group, which owns the company along with the hypermarket chain Kaufland, had €40 billion, or $51 billion, in sales in 2005, up from roughly €36 billion in 2004. The company does not release profit figures.

In much the same way that Wal- Mart emerged from roots in Bentonville, Arkansas, in the United States, Lidl got its start when Josef Schwarz became a partner in 1930 in a fruit wholesaler in Heilbronn, a midsize German town not far from Calw. The company hit its stride in the 1980s, when hundreds of Lidl stores opened throughout Germany.

In contrast to Wal-Mart, Lidl never relied on the giant suburban and rural "big-box" model that allowed the American retailer to expand so quickly, forcing competitors to respond or go out of business. The typical Lidl is urban and has only few hundred square meters, or a few thousand square feet, of floor space. Much like discount airlines, Lidl has a low ratio of staff to customers, usually employing 10 to 14 people in a single store.

Wal-Mart now appears to be in a position of flux. In the year through January, it posted record net income of $11.2 billion on sales of $312.4 billion. But it has recently suffered a slowdown in U.S. sales amid high energy prices, and it announced last week that it would bow out of the German market, largely because of the intense competition.

But Lidl remains "the discounter to watch in Europe," in the words of IGD, a London-based retail consultancy.

Although it did not venture outside Germany until 1989, IGD classifies Lidl as the third-most "European" retailer, a ranking based on its sales, presence outside its home market and plans for expansion. Carrefour, the French hypermarket operator, is No. 1 and Metro, which controls a diverse collection of retailers and is taking over Wal-Mart's German stores, is No. 2.

But discounters like Lidl are driving the European market much more than bigger retailers like Carrefour, whose emphasis on service, breadth of selection and quality sets them apart from Lidl. With 6,800 stores in 20 countries in Europe, Lidl has helped set the tone in the European market, defining price as the overriding variable for success.

"In the European grocery market now, there is a real focus on providing value compared to prices," said Ben Miller, an IGD analyst. "The growth of discounters is one of the things that is contributing to this."

In Germany, discount chains have gobbled up 40 percent of the grocery market already. Along with Aldi, its main rival with more 4,000 stores in Germany, Lidl has led the pack. In other European countries, the discounters' market share stands at 10 percent to 20 percent, but these figures should keep rising, analysts say.

The campaigns against the giant retailers and discounters have a different feel in Europe than those in the United States, said Jan Furstenbourg, the commercial director of Union Network International, a global alliance of 900 retail unions based in Switzerland.

One main issue in America is whether Wal-Mart provides health insurance to employees, something that state benefit systems render irrelevant in Europe.

"Here, they can't fiddle around with health insurance, nor can they pay 30 percent less then collective wage agreements," Furstenbourg said. "But they do whatever they can to keep workers who are cheaper."

Mindful that a German issue is increasingly becoming a European one, ver.di in June published "The Black Book on Lidl in Europe," whose name is a pun on the family of Dieter Schwarz, which controls Lidl. (Schwarz means black in German.) The book, researched by an investigator, Andreas Hamann, lays out accusations against Lidl across a continent whose labor laws still vary widely.

According to the book, Lidl workers in Portugal were asked in job interviews whether they liked unions and pressure was put on women not to have children because it would cost the company more. Unpaid overtime was a common complaint in places like Greece and Spain, while French employees cited intrusive surveillance via closed circuit cameras or private detectives.

Despite the public pressure and unlike Wal-Mart and the British retailing giant Tesco, Lidl seems uninterested in publicly defending its business practices. Dieter Schwarz, whose family controls Lidl and Kaufland through a holding company, has put its wealth - estimated at €3 billion by one German magazine - in a foundation. He seldom gives interviews. Repeated efforts to obtain interviews with representatives of Lidl were unsuccessful.

But the company did provide a written statement that called the Schwarz- Buch "irresponsible and damaging to the reputation" of Lidl. It said that the company provided "a network of trusted people" to whom aggrieved employees can turn.

In Germany, ver.di's main complaint about Lidl concerns "works councils," the employee bodies within a company that represent employees, ensuring that overtime is paid and that working conditions, like bathroom breaks, are maintained. Wages are not a major issue as they are regulated by sector- wide contracts. The Lidl in Calw was one of only six of its stores in Germany that had a works council.

In July 2005, Lidl announced it was closing the Calw store because of weak sales. Employees disputed the claim. They took the company to a labor court, which ordered the closing delayed. But the store closed as scheduled, on Oct. 1, with Lidl saying that renovations were necessary. With ver.di's support, the Lidl employees returned to the court, which imposed a €100,000 fine on Lidl for disobeying its order, although the store remained closed.

By then, Waidelich had worked her last day at the store. The court's sanction led Lidl to negotiate a settlement that gave employees the option of working at other Lidl stores or taking severance payments, which Waidelich did.

As the deputy head of the works council, Waidelich helped watch out for other employees until June 30, when that role ceased to exist. Ver.di claimed a victory, since Lidl at least offered a settlement. But even the union acknowledges that the struggle is bound to be a long one, because Lidl's business model remains highly successful and the company is unlikely to want more works councils.

Union officials said that they had anecdotal evidence that working conditions in some Lidl stores were improving, perhaps thanks to the bad publicity from Calw, but that no new works councils had been formed.

In July, Waidelich found work at a clothing store in Calw, and she said that she was enjoying the change after Lidl, the only company she had known since finishing her education. At her new job, the pay is good, she said, the management is pleasant and the atmosphere is relaxed.

"I have a completely different relationship to my employer now," she said. "I can hardly believe how different it is."

[Sarah lady]

I've sent this to my comrades in NoSweat - we're doing some actions outside ASDA in the next few weeks and there is a Lidl next door so maybe we'll be able to combine things!

[Tanya]

Cool, Sarah - thanks for spreading the word!

[damon]

I remember ten years ago that Lidl sold the cheapist beer in Germany. About 49 phenigs a can.
Their stores are a bit grim though. But the one near me, in London rd Croydon, is packed with people, every hour it's opened; or so it seems when I go past.
In England (in London anyway), there is definitely some class stuff about Lidl. The people who shop there are much more likely to be working class. One of my sisters, who is 'a bit stuck up' (when it comes to food shopping), wouldn't dream of going there.
I know I'm missing the point here, but so what? (I just had this little communication urge (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif) ).
Hi Tanya.

[Tanya]

Hi Damon. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

And yes, you're missing the point. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)

But here's a link to a story from Feb. 2005 about Lidl in Britain.

[Busy Girl]

Thanks Tanya, must have missed this when you first posted. My niece's partner has just started work at Lidl and his employment conditions seem to be appalling. He's a management trainee and they seem to use that as an excuse for requiring him to do anything, and to do oads of unpaid overtime. I've been trying to convince him to organise since he started there, I'll pass this info on to him.

[Belvedere]

Thanks Tanya, must have missed this when you first posted. My niece's partner has just started work at Lidl and his employment conditions seem to be appalling. He's a management trainee and they seem to use that as an excuse for requiring him to do anything, and to do oads of unpaid overtime. I've been trying to convince him to organise since he started there, I'll pass this info on to him.

Please, Please tell him to get out now. I had worked for Lidl for 5 and a half years as a supervisor in their warehouse, I had to train managers for positions I could have easily done and was passed over 3 times until I finally made it to manager with no payrise and after asking the third time for an appraisal so I could finally get what was owed to me, they accused me of stealing and if I had not resigned they would have sacked me just because theywanted to save money. In all those years I only had one appraisal and the manager started off by saying ' go and find yourself another job because you're not having mine. I have alot more horror stories too. Tell him to beware they don't even care about health and safety.

[Tanya]

Belvedere, that's awful! Have you contacted UNI Commerce to tell them your horror stories? They're collecting accounts of mistreatment by current and former employees.

[Belvedere]

Belvedere, that's awful! Have you contacted UNI Commerce to tell them your horror stories? They're collecting accounts of mistreatment by current and former employees.

No not yet but I will thanks for the info, I absolutly hate the ********, as now I'm finding it hard to get another job because they won't give me a reference and nearly lost my house because no money coming in and the Social don't want to help because I quit that awful place, thanks again.

[Beryl the Peril]

Belvedere ... sorry to hear you are having problems finding another job and the social are being their usual unhelpful selves. (i hated working for them more than i hated working for anybody!)

although i hated wolkobastards (wilkinsons) i have to say that the problems i experienced were to do with the local management rather than the Wilkinsons (it is a family firm) and they do actually encourage you to join the union.

so if you do want to get back into retail you could do worse.

if you can stand the bloddy muzak!

[Belvedere]

Belvedere ... sorry to hear you are having problems finding another job and the social are being their usual unhelpful selves. (i hated working for them more than i hated working for anybody!)

although i hated wolkobastards (wilkinsons) i have to say that the problems i experienced were to do with the local management rather than the Wilkinsons (it is a family firm) and they do actually encourage you to join the union.

so if you do want to get back into retail you could do worse.

if you can stand the bloddy muzak!

Finally got a job, and have now consulted the Employment Law poeple about Lidl, just waiting to hear back. But your so right it is the local management that causes the problems, Lidl plucks their managers from one area ie Scotland and put them to work in London where they have no family or friends and can do nothing but work long hours, that would make me unhappy.

[Finola]

(IMG:style_emoticons/default/dry.gif) Yes I would heed this warning to - I unfortunately have been with them longer - they want to get rid of me because of my age and are putting on a lot of pressure, typical bully boy tactics whcih come from the top. However, I keep a diary of everything that is going on and am biding my time. I am sure it is not doing my health any good but hopefully I will get a result. I will not be handing in my notice.....

[Tanya]

More misconduct by Lidl:

http://www.spiegel.de/international/busine...,543485,00.html