Building International Solidarity with Luxottica Workers

Last Wednesday, Luxottica union members in Italy met virtually with Luxottica workers in the United States, to share their different experiences and discuss strategies to solve some of the challenges the workers in the U.S are facing. Workers at Luxottica’s manufacturing and distribution center in McDonough, Ga., have been organizing with CWA to gain union recognition for months but have been met with an aggressive anti-union campaign from the company.

During the meeting, the U.S workers talked about challenges including mandatory overtime, low pay, mismanagement, mistreatment and discrimination, sexual harassment, and much more. They described the push back they have received from the company, pointing out that the company has even gone as far as using a mobile application called LiveSafe, that was supposed to be oriented towards health and safety issues around COVID, to send out anti-union messaging to workers. The Italian workers shared their perspective on the positive aspects of having a union at Luxottica and some of the ways they have dealt with similar issues as an organized workforce. The workers and staff who participated in the meeting left feeling enlightened and energized to continue fighting for a union at Luxottica.