Tetra Pak staff at plant in Moerdijk, the Netherlands, stop working for several hours to express dissatisfaction with social plan ahead of planned closure of site

Elyse Blye

April 25, 2014 (SeeNews) – The staff at the Moerdijk plant of Swedish packaging company Tetra Pak in southern Netherlands stopped working today for a few hours to express its dissatisfaction with a social plan ahead of the planned closure of the site.

Trade unions had given the management an ultimatum to come up with a better proposal, but there was not any serious respond, news agency ANP cited Frans de Haan from the FNV Kiem union as saying on Friday.

The intention is to walk out on Monday too. If the management does not respond again, the protest actions will be expanded, the union warned.

In January Tetra Pak announced plans to close down the plant by the end of the year, which will lead to 215 job cuts. Continued weak demand for beverage cartons in Europe has led to significant overcapacity at some of its plants, the company said then. Compared with 2007 levels, sales in central and northern Europe last year dropped by more than 16%.

The unions believe that the local production will be relocated to eastern Europe where labour costs are lower. They also consider that Tetra Pak, as a profitable company, should offer good severance pays and a budget of EUR 4,000 (USD 5,500) per employee to help redundant workers find new jobs.

(EUR 1.0 = USD 1.385)

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