Profits for the Bosses, “Pay Betrayal” for the Workers

The Swedish-based company, Trelleborg Group, is, as their web site puts it, “a world leader in engineered polymer solutions that seal, damp and protect critical applications in demanding environments.” The Group has around 15,500 employees in over 40 countries, and financially speaking is doing well for itself, protecting it quite well from the rising damp of economic crisis and the very much related poverty wages affecting most of the rest of us.

As a report on their web site states: “2013 was the most profitable year ever for the Trelleborg Group, despite the fact that the anticipated economic recovery did not materialize. The Group’s market positions were strengthened and results were close to the long-term targets set for profitability.” (Corporate Responsibility 2013, p.6) Not much has changed, with a more recent report from September 2014 reiterating the same points (with net sales increasing by 6 percent compared with the year-earlier period).

Here in Leicester at Trelleborg Industrial AVS factory in Beamont Leys, workers were forced into launching a programme of industrial action earlier today over what they have branded a ‘pay betrayal’. In the face of global profits for Trelleborg’s bosses, last year their workers here in Leicester even went so far as to accept a pay freeze to help support the company. Now for obvious reasons they have become frustrated by the company’s refusal to engage in meaningful talks and address their concerns over pay, especially following the imposition of a below inflation pay offer by management at the Swedish owned firm.

To remind the super-rich owners of Trelleborg that it is they, the workers, who generate all the profits for them, 168 of the factories 250 employees who are members of Unite the Union are taking industrial action. Currently this entails a series of stoppages, as well as working to rule and refusing to work overtime.

Unite regional officer Lakhy Mahal said: “The company should be in no doubt of the workforce’s resolve which is underlined by the massive vote [88%] in favour of industrial action. Management need to engage in meaningful talks to resolve the dispute and give people a fair and decent pay rise.”

As reported in the Leicester Mercury today, a shopfloor worker, who did not want to be named for obvious reasons, said: “We do not want to go on strike, but we are being forced to do this because the company will not listen to us. They have told us they want to keep wages down so we can stay competitive with China.”

Such criminal attempts by a profitable corporation to engage in what can only be seen as a race to the bottom are unfortunately all too common. But perhaps such a disrespectful display of arrogance on the part of Trelleborg’s management should not come as too much of a surprise given that just a few years ago a number of their leading US-based executives were imprisoned after pleading guilty to participating in a price-fixing conspiracy.

Luckily, members of Unite at the Leicester factory can feel confident that they will be able to win their necessary action against their bullying employers, especially given the recent success Unite the union has had with the St Mungo’s Broadway homelessness charity workers in London. Housing workers who were able to win massive concessions from their bosses because of their determination to win at all costs.

Here the National Shop Stewards Network (NSSN) also played an important supportive role in their struggle, by acting to bring together rank-and-file members of unions across the country to share strategy on how to beat recalcitrant management and to encourage more coordinated work between different unions.

If you can, get down to the Trelleborg Hoods Close factory to support the workers on the picket line at their next day of industrial action on Friday 14th (from 10am until 1.30pm), 1 Hoods Close Leicester LE4 2BN (between Beaumont Leys and Red Hill, Beaumont Leys Lane off Krefeld Way).