Tchibo is a well-known German coffee retailer
that has expanded into a wide range of goods including clothing
through its own shops, other supermarkets and mail-order.
It is now the 8th largest retailer in Germany and has opened
shops in Austria, Switzerland, the Netherlands and the UK.
It is privately owned by the Hertz family who, with an interesting
policy of trying to look small while actually being big, have
so far been resistant to accepting their social responsibilities.
The German CCC (Kampagne für "Saubere" Kleidung)
faced disappointment when talks in September 2004 with Tchibo
had no satisfactory outcome, and a further meeting in January
2005 was cancelled by the company at short notice. However,
Tchibo has recently appointed an officer for social affairs
and asked the CCC to start talks again.
At issue are labour rights violations in Tchibo's supplier
factories in Bangladesh. A CCC-commissioned study found
workers being fired for trying to join a union or just to
organise themselves, below legal minimum wages, wages being
paid up to three months late, no employment contracts, and
other problems.
CCC groups undertook street actions in October in Hamburg
and pre-Christmas street theatre in Berlin. The study was
summarised in a booklet "Tchibo - Jede Woche eine neue
Welt? Nicht für die Textilarbeiterinnen in Bangladesch!"
("Tchibo - Each week a new World? Not for the Garment
Workers in Bangladesh!" - the title being a play on
a key Tchibo slogan). Public discussion panels were held.
Though invited, Tchibo never showed up, but importers working
for them did. A flyer and postcard campaign followed, and
the Hamburg CCC group is holding a theatre workshop in mid-June
where they will develop more street actions and ideas for
the campaign. Recently, the Austrian CCC has joined in the
campaign on Tchibo.
Meanwhile, the German CCC took up the case of one Bangladeshi
Tchibo supplier factory, Urmi Garments, where forty workers
had been fired when management heard they belonged to a
union. Three women went to court to ask for the legal three
months' redundancy pay and, though it took a year, they
won.
