Anyone who has brought home build-it-yourself furniture from Ikea has probably cursed in frustration that something that you expected to be simple, turned into an excruciatingly painful ordeal that took far longer than you ever imagined.
Some 350 workers at Swedwood, an IKEA-subsidiary with a furniture plant in Danville, Va., trying to form a union with the Machinists (IAM) are having a similar struggle .
This week the workers, the IAM and the global union federation, Builders and Woodworkers International (BWI), launched a campaign to shine a spotlight on what they say are the labor and human rights abuses at Swedwood.
Anyone who has brought home build-it-yourself furniture from Ikea has probably cursed in frustration that something that you expected to be simple, turned into an excruciatingly painful ordeal that took far longer than you ever imagined.
Some 350 workers at Swedwood, an IKEA-subsidiary with a furniture plant in Danville, Va., trying to form a union with the Machinists (IAM) are having a similar struggle .
This week the workers, the IAM and the global union federation, Builders and Woodworkers International (BWI), launched a campaign to shine a spotlight on what they say are the labor and human rights abuses at Swedwood.
According to the workers, the issues at Swedwood include dangerous working conditions; forced overtime; discriminatory work practices; high injury rates; discharge of union supporters and harassment of union organizers
You can help by sending a holiday card to Ikea CEO Mikael Ohlsson. Click here. The card to Ohlsson asks that he send a message to the workers at the Danville Swedwood plant
that they are free to choose to join a trade union and be represented so that their rights are guaranteed. The doors should always be open for trade unions to talk to these workers
For more information on the struggle in Danville, click here. BWI is made up of 328 trade unions around the world, including the IAM, with 12 million members in the building materials, wood, forestry and allied industries.
This is a crosspost from AFL-CIO Now blog.