The ASF is an independent workers union affiliated with the International Workers Association (IWA-AIT). We are responding to a call for solidarity from the CNT-AIT, our sister union in Spain, which has been in dispute with CEX in Catalonia for 12 months.
We are disturbed to hear continued allegations that CEX’s management in Catalonia has engaged in a protracted campaign of bullying and harassment against employees who raise concerns regarding workplace pressure and arbitrary, unilateral changes to their working conditions.
CEX website represents the company as a community: “passionately un-corporate, yet always professional”, where the customers “who shop with us and now work with us run the show.”
We now know that this is just the same bullshit corporate spin we hear from other global chains.
CEX’s management in Catalonia are accused of engaging in:
- incorrect and inconsistent application of national awards and commerce agreements protecting worker’s rights.
- arbitrarily reducing working hours for older employees and those with children
- the staging of fraudulent union elections amongst its staff
- tricking staff to attend rented apartments where they have been interrogated about union activities
- vexatious litigation of staff members who stand up for their rights.
We in Australia know that CEX’s customers look at CEX’s staff and see themselves, and that they will no longer wish to trade with a company that treats its staff in this way. That is why we are picketing CEX’s stores and encouraging its customers to go elsewhere.
We call upon CEX management in Australia and its parent company in the UK to end the boycott by intervening to stop the abuses in Spain.
ASF-IWA Secretariat