Can French-based hotel transnational Accor learn to respect trade union rights and the agreements it signs?
Click here to send a message to Accor! [1]
On May 30, local unions of the IUF's North American affiliate UNITE HERE again visited the French embassy in Ottawa, Canada to report new violations of international standards and Ontario law at Accor Novotels in Ottawa and North York. Workers at these hotels have long been organizing with union support - and the union thought it had an agreement with management that Accor would not interfere with employees' right to union representation.
Accor's record of abusing rights in Ontario is well documented. The Ontario Labour Relations Board (OLRB) ruled last September that Accor had systematically engaged in illegal activity to frustrate union organizing [2]at the Novotel Mississauga. In December 2012 the French government's National Contact Point for the OECD Guidelines on Multinational Enterprises determined that Accor had violated the Guidelines over a period of years [3] in Ontario and at the Novotel in Cotonou, Bénin. The French government called on Accor to enter into good faith negotiations with the union in both countries to resolve these conflicts.
Under the auspices of the OLRB Accor signed an agreement in January but has consistently violated its terms. In new charges before the OLRB, the union contends that management has engaged in threats to employees' job security, carried out illegal surveillance and interrogation and altered working conditions, among other practices, in order to undercut support for unionization.
In 1995 Accor signed an agreement with the IUF in which it commits "not to oppose efforts to unionize its employees."
In Bénin, there has been no agreement and no good faith in agreeing on terms for a collective bargaining agreement for which workers have been waiting for more than 12 years! Despite the French government urging good faith negotiations, management's response has been to insist that seniority be eliminated from the pay scale for entire job categories, in a hotel with many long-serving employees in one of the world's poorest countries.
Enough of bad faith and broken agreements - tell Accor to respect trade union rights and the agreements it signs! [1]
Click here to send a message to Accor [1].