Defend the right to strike: International Solidarity Appeal 

Labour Behind the Label joins an international call for solidarity for the Mont Blanc workers in Italy

Striking is a right. No to anti-union measures. No to the gag order for Montblanc workers.

The luxury sector is increasingly under the spotlight for the numerous human rights violations that affect the supply chain. The so-called ‘made in Italy’ is a theoretical concept that often conceals productions obtained in countries where fundamental rights are not respected or in Italy in the dark layers of subcontracting, where workers, often immigrants, work without any rights and for poverty wages. The case of Montblanc subcontract workers that were fired after they unionised, is a plastic example.

We express our concern and indignation about the “anti-union measures” demanded by the brand Montblanc against the union SUDD Cobas with their injunction action. Montblanc is asking the Civil Court to ban the union from demonstrations within 500 meters of the Florence boutique, under penalty of fines of 5,000 euros each.

The very idea of preventing any form of workers protest within 500 meters of the brand’s boutique is unprecedented and threatens the foundations of freedom of demonstration and union rights. This would be an unprecedented ban in the history of the Italian Republic, and, combined with the Security Bill no. 1660 currently under discussion in parliament of Italy with which the Meloni government wants to make picketing in front of company gates a criminal offense, makes it a very serious and worrying series of events.

With this Solidarity Appeal we ask Montblanc to respect the freedom of association and the freedom of demonstration and to drop all legal actions against SUDD Cobas union immediately.

Our solidarity goes to the SUDD Cobas union, and the workers and employees of Z Production and Eurotaglio, respectively the supplier and sub-supplier for the Montblanc brand. Their struggle had the merit of bringing to light an unacceptable reality: grueling shifts between 12 and 14 hours for six days a week, and wages less than three euros an hour, to produce bags sold for thousands of euros each. After obtaining the application of the national collective agreement and eight-hour shifts for five days a week for these workers came a termination of orders and consequently their dismissal.

Presumably the production has been delocalized, as the Union denounced from the first moment and as was documented in the video documentary “Inside Italy’s Designer Sweatshop” produced by Al Jazeera. It is to assume that a “on-site relocation” took place: a relocation of orders just a few kilometers, which, however brought back the same exploitative conditions that the union had fought against at Z Production and Eurotaglio.

The very fact that Montblanc is requesting an injunction action engaging in such an anti-union measure is worrying for the health of democracy in Italy: we cannot remain silent while multinational companies and financial funds attempt to intervene more and more directly in political and social life, imposing measures, choices and directions to assert private interests against the public and collective interest, and against democracy itself.

We must reject the idea of city and public space proposed by Montblanc and Richemont (the multibillion-dollar financial fund that owns the brand): we cannot accept an idea of a city in which workers are prevented to demonstrate where the goods they produce are shown and sold, an idea of a city in which a multinational corporation can obtain the restriction of freedom of expression of members of society considered inconvenient because they want to cross those public spaces with a purpose which is not marked by consumption and private interest.