France: Fierce Fight vs. Lipton Bosses Is No Tea Party

MARSEILLES, FRANCE, January 4 — Nearly 200 workers at the Fralib factory in nearby Gémenos are engaged in a fierce fight to prevent the Unilever company from closing its plant here, which has been producing Lipton Tea for 118 years.

Unilever has just “bought the U.S. company Alberto-Culver for $3.7 billion,” declared union steward Oliver Leberquier. “That’s proof they don’t have any financial worries.”

Last spring, the Fralib workers struck for nine weeks for a 200-euro/month ($260) raise but were forced to accept the company offer of 16-euros/month ($21), although they did win wage payment for three strike days, a week of paid holidays and a 1,200-euro ($1,560) one-time bonus.

Meanwhile, in 2008 then-Unilever CEO Patrick Cescau raked in 4.7 million euros for himself — almost 400,000 euros ($520,000) a month!

The workers have launched a national boycott campaign against the Lipton brand, and are sticking up 15,000 boycott posters nation-wide.

The workers are also thinking of taking over the factory and manufacturing tea bags themselves. They’re discussing a return to a traditional method of flavoring tea and herbal tea, and of buying ingredients from local growers again.

How much effect this campaign will have on the multi-billion dollar company remains to be seen. In October, the Fralib workers sent delegations to the seven Unilever factories where some workers walked off the job to talk to the delegations.

Direct strike action organized with the support of other Unilever workers across Europe might have a better chance of challenging the company, but the reformist unions, operating within the bosses’ system, are hardly inclined to organize such an action.

Unilever plans to transfer Fralib production to its Belgian factory where it can extract even more profits than here, playing off one group of workers against another. Globalization of profits means death to workers.

Actually, said steward Leberquier, “The factory is profitable. The total labor cost, including company social security contributions, amounts to 15 eurocents per box of tea.” Each box retails for two euros. But capitalists always drive for maximum profits, to be gained by moving to Belgium.

Unilever France has been accused of cheating consumers by putting less tea in its teabags, and is cheating on taxes to the tune of 67 million euros a year ($87 million) via a financial set-up in Switzerland. It is an Anglo-Dutch multinational and exploits 163,000 workers worldwide.

Unilever buys palm oil from suppliers that are devastating Indonesia’s rainforests. In Latin America, the company continues to sell detergents containing phosphates, a serious pollutant. Hindustan Unilever uses racist TV ads for its skin-lightening cream. They showed depressed dark-skinned women being ignored by men and employers. After the women lighten their skin, they “suddenly find boyfriends and glamorous jobs.”

Unifying Unilever workers globally against this racist, exploitative boss would be a big step towards organizing for a revolution that would wipe out this oppressive capitalist system. This goal requires communist leadership, quite contrary to the reformist unions who mislead workers into limiting their struggle under the bosses’ rules.