Trade union representatives participating in statutory meetings of the Building and Wood Workers’ International (BWI) on 7 December 2010 will also gather outside the new IKEA store in Vernier, Geneva.

This local action is part of a BWI-led international campaign to bring the Swedish group to respect the fundamental rights of its workers in Danville, Virginia (USA), by finally allowing them freely to join the union of their choice. Swedwood, IKEA’s industrial group, is still refusing to recognise this fundamental right.

"Our US affiliate the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers (IAM) has never been allowed to enter the factory to inform workers of the benefits of joining a union of their choice," stresses Ambet Yuson, the BWI’s General Secretary.

"We refuse to accept that the attitudes that paved the way for the international expansion of this furniture giant, founded on loyal and sound labour relations, cannot after more than three years be extended to the other side of the Atlantic," adds Ambet Yuson.

Not forgetting the international framework agreement that IKEA signed in 1998, BWI is therefore demanding an immediate end to this situation, which is affecting as many as 300 American workers, who meanwhile also face health and safety abuses and, worse still, veritable racial discrimination.

Through peaceful, determined and continual action, BWI wants to alert consumers to the dangers of the variable geometry in IKEA’s labour relations’ management.

Sign up to BWI’s latest protest letter by logging on to www.bwint.org/IKEA

Contacts: Geneviève F. Kalina or Wim de Groof, BWI, Geneva. Tél: 079 667 66 19