The founding of the pseudo-union Virðing and its agreement with SVEIT, where employers are trying to negotiate with themselves, is a deplorable treatment of workers in the catering sector. This is stated in a resolution by Fagfélögin, Byggiðn – the Icelandic Construction Workers’ Union; MATVÍS – the Icelandic Food and Catering Workers’ Union; RSÍ – the Icelandic Electrical Industry Association and its member unions, and VM – the Icelandic Association of Engineers and Metalworkers.
Fagfélögin wholeheartedly supports Efling’s arguments regarding the pseudo-union Virðing and calls on workers in the catering sector to reject membership in the union. Furthermore, Fagfélögin call on Virðing to abandon its attempts at social dumping.
Disrespect and social dumping
Fagfélögin strongly condemns the attempts of a group of restaurant owners to undermine the achievements that other real unions have worked hard to achieve on behalf of workers in recent decades. Fagfélögin wholeheartedly supports the arguments of Efling and ASÍ regarding this.
The founding of the pseudo-union Virðing and its collective agreement with SVEIT, an association of companies in the restaurant market, is an attack on the wage struggle and the rights of employees in the restaurant sector. ASÍ has pointed out that Virðing has at least two board members who are directly involved in the operation of restaurants that work within SVEIT. Employers are thus trying to negotiate with themselves. That alone is a deplorable treatment of employees.
The collective agreement that the restaurant workers in question have made with themselves includes reduced wages, extended daytime working hours, lower bonuses for evening shifts, and reduced holiday entitlements, to name a few. All of this is due to their desire to exploit workers in a vulnerable position; mostly young people and immigrants.
It is worth mentioning that SVEIT has, in its efforts to reduce the position of employees in the catering sector, unsuccessfully tried to obtain the right to negotiate from the Confederation of Icelandic Enterprise (SA).
Fagfélögin call on employees in the catering sector to reject membership in the pseudo-union Virðing and not to give in to pressure from employers in this regard. Furthermore, Fagfélögin call on Virðing’s administrators to to abandon their attempts at social dumping in the Icelandic labor market.
If employees in the catering sector believe that they have been victimized by the fraud mill of Virðingar and SVEIT, Efling strongly encourages them to contact us. This can be done on the reporting page which can be found here.