Nestlé Boycott Updates

Nestlé union leader murdered

     On September 22, Diosdada Fortuna, the union leader at the Calamba City Nestlé factory, was murdered on his way home from the picket lines. Since 2002, Fortuna had been leading 660 Nestlé employees in a struggle for better working conditions. He assumed the job after his predecessor Meliton Roxas was assassinated at the gates of the Nestlé factory in 1988. Many are laying responsibility for Fortuna’s death at the feet of the national government and the Nestlé corporation. The government, led by Gloria Arroyo, has a vested interest in breaking unions in order to keep foreign investment in the country. Even if Nestlé was not directly involved, by maintaining their operations in the Phillipines despite the assassinations, the corporation has benefited from and tacitly endorsed this anti-labour violence. As Fortuna’s widow pointed out, "My husband [had] no other enemy than Nestlé management."

     This summer, Nestlé was forced to pull two of its baby milk powders off the shelves of Chinese supermarkets because samples of the product were found to contain dangerous amounts of iodine. As a result, the company’s sales growth slowed from 13 per cent last fiscal year to 7.5  in the first half of this year. Nestlé has been scrambling to regain consumer confidence in the country, and has resorted to slapping a "thumbsup" sticker on its baby milk to show it has the correct amount of iodine. And, as if it hadn’t endangered the health of Chinese infants enough, in an attempt to lure back customers Nestlé is distributing free samples of their product and is thus violating the International Code of Marketing of Breastmilk Substitutes.