Catherwood LibraryILR School

As Unilever moves forward with its $65 billion food-business merger with McCormick, an international union federation is pushing the company to extend a two-year employment guarantee beyond Europe and Britain. The International Union of Food Workers, which represents Unilever employees across roughly two dozen countries, says the company has declined to negotiate a single global agreement and instead wants unions outside Europe to bargain locally or regionally. The union argues that workers in Asia, Africa, and the Americas should receive the same protections already secured by European employees. The dispute highlights how multinational restructuring can produce different employment protections for workers depending on where they are located.