Press Communication, 18 June 2009

(18 June 2009, Dusseldorf) Thousands of Energy workers assemble today for a protest at the Annual General Meeting of energy Company EON. The protest is organised by German Union Verdi. Under the slogan ‘we are one’, appropriated from EON publicity material, the Union organisers are staging an action day to condemn EON management refusal to provide guarantees on jobs and training. Union sources have also discovered that EON management has not ruled out breaking up the company and outsourcing key tasks.

Negotiations between the German Union Verdi and EON management broke down at the end of May when EON refused to provide the guarantees for jobs and training.

Verdi decided to organize a ‘We Are One’ EON Action day, using the public relations slogan of EON and scheduled their protest for the annual company day. Sven Bergelin, Verdi and President of the EPSU energy group said: “We expect constructive proposals. There should be no job redundancies. EON is to have a positive relation with the trade unions and respect collective agreements European wide”.

In a display of solidarity, and a sign that EON’s problems are international, unions from a large number of countries in which EON has subsidiaries will send delegations to the demonstration. Other unions are organizing local action or sending messages of solidarity.

Verdi has also received support from its’ European Federation. The Deputy General Secretary of the European Federation of Public Service Unions (EPSU) Jan Willem Goudriaan stated that: “EON workers are justifiably angry with the way they have been treated. The number of EON workers from other countries coming to the demo tomorrow shows that EON is a company not listening to its workers.”

EPSU and the unions concerned will consider further actions if a decent compromise is not reached.

Delegations from Belgium, France, Hungary, Italy, Netherlands, Romania, Spain, UK will attend. The action takes place at EON platz, Dusseldorf, 18 June 2009. The demonstrators will be addressed between 1200 and 1400 by several speakers including Sven Bergelin of Verdi and EPSU President of the Standing Committee utilities.

For further information: www.epsu.org/a/5302

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For further information, please contact: Brian Synnott +32 474 98 96 75, bsynnott@epsu.org Jan Willem Goudriaan, epsu@epsu.org or + 32 2 250180

EPSU is the European Federation of Public Service Unions. It is the largest federation of the ETUC. 8 million public service workers from over 200 trade unions are members. They organise workers in the energy, water and waste sectors, health and social services and local and national administration.

For more information on EPSU and our work please go to: www.epsu.org