EFC claims bias in J Crew withdrawal probe

The Employers’ Federation of Ceylon (EFC) has complained to the General Secretary of a global union that only ‘one side” of the story has been heard in an issue where a foreign retailer has pulled out of Sri Lanka over alleged violation of workers’ rights.

Responding to a letter sent to the EFC by Jyrki Raina, General Secretary, IndustriALL Global Union, Switzerland on “Non-respect of trade union’s rights,’ the EFC said the right to freedom of association and the ILO Convention in relation to freedom of association very clearly stipulates that in Article 2 of Convention 97 relating to the right to freedom of association that “workers and employers without distinction shall have the right to establish and ….. to join organizations of their own choosing without previous authorization”.

In other words, it is very clear from this Convention that it is the worker’s prerogative to choose an organization of his choice, the EFC letter said.

It said neither the employer, the trade union nor the ILO have the authority to impose on the workers the type of or- ganization that should represent them.

“We believe that the thrust of the complaint of the FTZ GSEU is that Mirrai (Pvt) Ltd has not recognized the union as the bargaining agent.

Sri Lanka is in a unique position whereby the legislation makes it mandatory to bargain with a trade union where the trade union can command a representative strength of more than 40 per cent of the workers in respect of whom it wishes to bargain. The legislation also provides that when there is a dispute with regard to the representative strength the Commissioner General of Labour is empowered to conduct a referendum within the factory to ascertain the representative strength,” the EFC said.

It said a referendum was held at Mirrai (Pvt) Ltd and the official result was announced by the Commissioner General of Labour in writing which revealed that the FTZ GSEU did not have sufficient representative strength to satisfy the requirements of the legislation. Therefore, there was no legal obligation for Mirrai to engage and recognize the union as the bargaining agent. Soon after this event, there was a lot of pressure brought upon by the FTZ GSEU through various external sources to ‘concede’ to demands made by the union under the threat that, if not it would lose orders from J Crew, the EFC alleged.“Our member-firm kept us apprised of these developments from time to time. Some of the demands related to reinstatement of employees who had resigned many months previously. The reason for reinstatement given by the union was that the resignation was on account of ‘victimization’. The company obviously was unable to respond positively to this frivolous allegation,” it said.

The investigations J Crew carried out in Sri Lanka through “independent auditors” did not measure up to objective standards. It was nothing but a “one way street”, it said.

At a discussion before the Department of Labour the company once again agreed to hold a referendum within the company to ascertain the strength of the trade union. This meeting was be- fore the Commissioner General of Labour and the Secretary, Ministry of Labour and Labour Relations. “We understand that Mr Anton Marcus, on behalf of the union refused this offer. This position was confirmed by the Commissioner General of Labour at a meeting chaired by the Minister of Labour and Labour Relations when Mr Marcus alleged that the company was preventing the Union mobilizing employees within the workplace,” the EFC said.

EFC said in this context what has been reported is ‘only’ the story related by the union. It said Mirrai which has been operating for 17 years in Sri Lanka and J Crew has confirmed that it has been a company which has always kept its standards in terms of quality and delivery on time.

“The company is always willing to improve and remedy any deficiencies that could be identified, but according to our knowledge what has been required by the union in this instance have been demands that were far beyond the ability of any reasonable employer to agree to,” it said.