Ivory Coast workers say Unilever is violating their union rights amid share sale, documents show

Unilever workers in Ivory Coast protest lack of severance pay after business sale, violating collective bargaining agreement.

Unilever workers in Ivory Coast say the global consumer goods giant is violating their collective bargaining agreement in refusing to ensure severance pay if layoffs take place after the company sells its business there, documents show.

British-based Unilever is selling all of its shares in its struggling Ivory Coast unit, which employs some 160 people, to a local consortium of investors led by wholesale distributor Société de Distribution de Toutes Marchandises Côte d’Ivoire (SDTM).

Unilever Cote d'Ivoire manages the consumer giant's domestic and international brands in Ivory Coast, but SDTM will only take over Unilever's domestic brand business, according to an internal memo dated April 8. Unilever has not said how its international brands will be sold in Ivory Coast in future.

Workers began staging protests at Unilever offices in Abidjan on April 25, fearing the unit's falling turnover in recent years and the loss of the international brand business will trigger layoffs after the sale, which is expected to close by June 20.

Their collective bargaining agreement with Unilever, seen by Reuters, states that in the event of layoffs associated with disposing of its Ivory Coast business, Unilever will give employees severance pay equal to "one month of average gross salary per year of seniority, with a maximum of 18 months."

The bargaining agreement, dated from 2004, was confirmed by management in 2007 and remains valid, according to Lex Ways lawyer Soualiho Lassomann Diomande, who represents local staff.

The agreement also pledges "medical coverage for a maximum period of six months."