Blockade of Belgian H&M distribution centre disrupts European supply chain

Social dialogue regarding H&M’s European distribution center in Belgium, which is set to close this fall, has stalled. Employees are blocking access to the site. This threatens to cause supply chain issues for the retailer.

“The breakdown is complete”

In March of this year, H&M announced that it plans to close its European distribution center in Ghlin this fall, putting 440 jobs at risk. On May 18, management and unions met to negotiate the collective layoff, but those negotiations yielded no concrete results.

Furthermore, last Friday the distribution center received an unexpected request to urgently ship 720,000 items out of the 1.2 million available starting Tuesday, whereas a large, typical shipment amounts to 50,000 to 60,000 items. Stock at the Spanish and Italian branches appears to be running low due to the disruption of operations in Belgium, where there was also a strike in April, and this as the important summer sales period approaches.

“A meeting was scheduled for Wednesday, but it was postponed, and since then, social dialogue has broken down,” union representative Philippe Dumortier (FGTB) told the Belga news agency. The employees will once again gather in front of the entrance to the site in Ghlin on Wednesday. “The breakdown is complete, and we have asked the group’s Swedish management to send us another negotiator,” he said.