Due to open its first stores in Malta this Thursday, Lidl, the low-cost supermarket chain with the fourth highest turnover in Europe, has committed itself not to discriminate against employees who form part of a workers’ union.
Contacted by this newspaper, Lidl Malta manager David Gatt was asked whether Lidl will be restricting its employees from being unionised.
"We do not discriminate in any way against employees who become members or who are represented by a worker's union. To give an example: 25% of our employees in Italy are members of a worker's union," he said.
In 2003, Lidl Italia had lost a court case after a complaint filed by Filcams Cgil, a major Italian union federation, accused Lidl of applying anti-union policies.
In a press release issued after the court ruling, Filcams described Lidl as a place where: “Employees deciding to enrol in a union, or those (who) exercise rights quoted in their employment contracts or otherwise protected by law, are considered to be enemies of the group, ones who ‘move against the current’”.
Both the General Workers Union (GWU) and the Union Haddiema Maghqudin (UHM) are hoping that Lidl will use a different approach in Malta.
“There is a very minimal number, but some have already joined the union,” UHM Secretary-General Gejtu Vella told MaltaToday. “To my knowledge, no one has been discouraged from joining – although some other companies in Malta do, we know this for a fact. I hope that Lidl Malta will not opt for this strategy so that both the union and the company may co-operate, for the sake of both.”
No Lidl employees have enrolled with GWU so far, as secretary-general Tony Zarb confirmed. “I don’t know of any incidents of anti-union behaviour at Lidl Malta so far,” he said.