Ikea may be known in Sweden for giving
decent pay and benefits to its employees, but workers at the
company’s first factory in the United States are feeling left out.
Employees at an Ikea subsidiary in Danville, Va., are facing low pay,
long hours and even discrimination. Deciding to fight back, the
workers have filed for an election with the National Labor Relations
Board and have chosen the International Association of Machinists and
Aerospace Workers as their union.
Taxpayers sacrificed $12 million to
lure the giant furniture maker to Danville, but the main attraction
seems to be Virginia’s low minimum wage and “right-to-work” laws
that make unionization difficult. Starting pay has been cut, and
scheduled pay raises have been stopped. African-American employees
have faced racial discrimination, leading six to file a complaint
with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. These workers were
assigned to the lowest-paying departments in the plant and forced to
work the hated 11 p.m. to 7 a.m. shift.
“If we put in for a better job, we
wouldn’t get it—it would always go to a white person,” said
former employee Jackie Maubin. (LA Times, April 10)
Swedwood, the Ikea subsidiary that runs
the Danville plant, has fired many of its employees and replaced them
with lower-paid temporary workers who receive no benefits.
In May, under pressure from labor
activists, Swedwood cut down on its use of temp workers and Ikea
hired an auditing firm to speak to its workers about their
conditions. But many were afraid to tell the auditors how they really
felt because they were worried about being fired.
The auditors discovered that the
company was forcing its employees to work overtime, a policy which
stopped after the audit but has recently been restarted.
Many workers have said that it is common for management to inform
workers on Friday evening that they will have to pull a weekend shift
or face punishment.
“It’s the most strict place I have
ever worked,” said former plant employee Janis Wilborne. (LA
Times, April 10)
The exploitation at the Danville
factory has gotten so bad that the International Trade Union
Confederation has released a statement saying it would use its
resources to ensure the company treats its American workers
respectfully.
The IAMAW and the company were
originally holding discussions and working towards a cooperative
election, but in the past month talks between the two sides fell
apart. Swedwood has stated that it would accept the results of a
secret ballot election, which is hard to believe given that they
hired the union-busting firm of Jackson Lewis to intimidate the
workers.
Despite all of the tireless work a
company may do to give itself a
progressive image, its main goal is to make profits. Profits are made
by paying workers less than the full value their labor contributes to the goods or services they produce, which is
exactly what Ikea/Swedwood is doing in Virginia.
