Trade unions push back on sale of Nestlé Waters

Vevey: demonstration against the sale of Nestlé Waters Keystone-SDA

A demonstration against the proposed sale of Nestlé Waters to a partner brought together around a hundred people at the company headquarters in Vevey on Monday. Trade union delegations came from seven European countries to make their voices heard.

+Get the most important news from Switzerland in your inbox

The demonstrators had travelled from France, Italy, Spain, Poland, Belgium, Luxembourg and England to voice their concerns about the fate of their jobs and production sites. Waving flags from a dozen European trade unions, they marched from the Place du Marché to the headquarters of the food giant, behind a banner proclaiming “The future of Nestlé Waters workers is not for sale”.

“Experience has shown us that Nestlé’s partnerships and disposals too often result in plant closures, job losses and the undermining of acquired social rights. We cannot allow this to happen again,” explained the demonstrators in a leaflet distributed at the event.

Standard practice

Christoph Kauffmann, co-chairman of Nestlé’s European Information and Consultation Committee (CICEN), told Keystone-ATS news agency that this was not the first time Nestlé had divested a division such as its bottled water business in this way.

“Nestlé often does this when a business is no longer profitable enough, which is the case with water, or when there are scandals, which is also the case with water,” he said. “By spinning off the business and putting it into a joint venture, it will no longer be called Nestlé, and the media will be able to take it easier,” he concluded.

Meeting planned

A meeting between the CICEN and Nestlé representatives is scheduled for Tuesday. “We are listening to our employees and taking their concerns very seriously,” a spokesperson for the Vevey-based giant told Keystone-ATS. “We are confident in the future of the water business and are looking for a partner to ensure its long-term success,” she added.

Nestlé Waters has been at the heart of a controversy since early 2024 in France, when press reports revealed the use of banned treatments (ultraviolet, activated carbon) at various bottling sites for brands such as Vittel, Perrier, Hépar and Contrex.

Nestlé Waters Switzerland has not been spared by this scandal. Last June, it was ordered to pay compensation of CHF500,000 ($626,000) for having used carbon filters at its Henniez facility, which did not comply with the legislation governing the production of mineral water labelled as “natural mineral water”.

Adapted from French by DeepL/jdp

How we work

We select the most relevant news for an international audience and use automatic translation tools to translate them into English. A journalist then reviews the translation for clarity and accuracy before publication.  

Providing you with automatically translated news gives us the time to write more in-depth articles. The news stories we select have been written and carefully fact-checked by an external editorial team from news agencies such as Bloomberg or Keystone.

If you have any questions about how we work, write to us at [e-mail].

News