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Article

18 May 2009

Author:
International Union of Food Workers

'Adding Insecurity to Life': Dutch Unions Challenge Unilever Shareholders on Repressive Employment Practices Behind CSR Spin

The Dutch national center FNV and the IUF-affiliated FNV Bondgenoten turned out in force for Unilever's May 14 annual shareholder meeting in Rotterdam, highlighting the...social practices behind the company's well-polished "corporate social responsibility" public relations...[T]he newly published "Erratum - Adding Insecurity to Life", an 'alternative annual report' contrast[s] Unilever practices with the empty claims of the slick company report...[The] "Erratum" makes extensive use of published IUF materials on the systemic abuse of casual labour and union busting in Pakistan but also reports on social conditions on Indian tea plantations supplying to Unilever as well as the company's environmental devastation and mercury poisoning at the site of its former thermometer factory in Kodiakanal, India, among other issues.