With support from the AFL-CIO and UNI and IndustriALL global unions, the Communications Workers of America and its manufacturing division IUE-CWA obtained a powerful condemnation of Italian eyewear multinational corporation Luxottica in a Final Statement published in late December 2024 by Italy’s National Contact Point, which oversaw the case.

The trade unions filed their OECD complaint in 2022 following Luxottica’s aggressive anti-union campaign against workers’ organizing efforts at the company’s large manufacturing and distribution facility near Atlanta, Georgia. Management’s captive-audience meetings and repeated threats of dire consequences if workers chose CWA representation destroyed any chance of a fair union election, in violation of ILO standards requiring non-interference with workers’ exercise of their right to freedom of association. The OECD’s Guidelines for Responsible Business Conduct incorporate ILO standards on workers’ organizing rights.

Luxottica is a fully-unionized company in Italy with healthy and productive labor-management relations, and the Italian unions strongly supported the complaint. Luxottica at first accepted the NCP’s offer of mediation in the case, and CWA and its allies were hopeful of reaching a settlement in negotiations that began with face-to-face meetings in Rome.

But advised by their anti-union U.S. lawyers, the company stonewalled the process. The Italian authority found that Luxottica rejected the NCP conciliator’s recommendations, which included a halt to captive audience meetings and access to the facility by union representatives to talk to workers in non-work areas on non-work time.

The Final Statement confirmed the conciliator’s conclusion that the breakdown of the conciliation process was caused by Luxottica’s refusal to recognize the validity of the Guidelines, and the company’s insistence on U.S. law as the only relevant standard. The Final Statement concluded that “settling the case on the basis of the Guidelines’ provisions, rather than by applying the national law, alone, would have ensured a balanced, constructive and long-lasting solution.”

Despite the company’s refusal to settle the dispute in mediation, the NCP’s analysis provides a strong precedent for future cases that may arise, as well as a solid foundation for building alliances with GLJ and other supporters to help workers in their ongoing organizing efforts.

The unions’ media statement with a link to the NCP’s Final Statement is at https://cwa-union.org/news/releases/italian-government-authority-censures-eyewear-giant-luxottica-failing-uphold-fair