Four panelists spent Wednesday talking to store managers and employees on the picket line, followed by a two-hour public hearing Thursday afternoon at the Wosk Centre for Dialogue in downtown Vancouver. After listening to a wealth of emotional testimony from embittered IKEA employees during a hearing in Vancouver, international trade union representatives are pledging overseas action on behalf of the Richmond store workers, if the prolonged conflict continues. Picketers who testified Thursday clearly moved panelists with their determination to stick it out and their sense of betrayal over what they said was the loss of social values that had been part of IKEA’s approach throughout its astonishing global expansion under legendary founder Ingvar Kamprad.
Scenes from the Commission of Inquiry
