If the new round of job cuts in Europe are forced through, then Unilever's global workforce will number about 160,000. At the start of the company's Path to Growth Strategy in 2000 there were 300,000 workers employed by Unilever worldwide. So if jobs were cut by 47% in seven years, where was the growth?

PROFITS GREW: In just the first three years of the Path to Growth Strategy net profit increased 166%. Following lower profit growth in 2005, there was a 20% increase in net profit to €2.1 billion in 2006. In fact when the new job cuts were announced in July, Cescau also announced a 16% increase in second quarter profits for 2007. That translates as: "Profits are up thanks to all the increased productivity and output created by our employees, so we'd better cut more jobs!"

EXECUTIVE GOLDEN HANDSHAKES GREW:When CEO Niall Fitzgerald left Unilever in 2004 he got his £1.2 million salary plus cash from share options that boosted this to £3.7 million. Another £3 million was added to his pension. In the end he received a £17 million golden handshake.

EXECUTIVE PAY PACKETS GREW: In 2005 the Unilever CEO’s salary rose 43% and the CFO’s salary rose 30%. As Unilever’s new CEO Cescau earned €2.5 million and the Chief Financial Officer earned €1.43 million in their first year on the job. The wage bill for the top Unilever executives in 2005 was €11.1 million. But that was just their basic salaries. They also earned a lot more through share options!

MANAGEMENT STOCK OPTIONS GREW: Back in 2002 Niall Fitzgerald told senior managers that: “Our philosophy is if we are capable of beating them in the marketplace, then we are capable of beating them in shareholder value and you will be rewarded accordingly.” Under its Reward for Growth remuneration scheme share options were extended to 7,000 managers around the world. So at the bargaining table are we talking to a manager with an interest in running the plant, or a shareholder interested only in sucking out cash?

SHAREHOLDER VALUE GREW: The Path to Growth Strategy was simply an attempt to please financial markets and satisfy institutional shareholders like pension funds, investment banks, insurance firms and fund managers. It was not based on real growth in production, productivity and jobs, but merely on growing financial returns.
Back in November 2004 the Chairman of Unilever NV, Antony Burgmans made a presentation to the investment bank Morgan Stanley. In this presentation three “global dimensions” of Unilever are listed: Scale and geographic reach; Track record and control of costs and capital; Commitment to shareholder value. This third point was repeated throughout the presentation, with the concluding bullet point putting to rest any fears among shareholders that management was hoarding funds for outrageous uses such as re-investment in production: “Unilever fully committed to driving shareholder value”.
* This commitment is realized in the release of €16 billion in cash to shareholders in 2000-2004 and €30 billion in 2005-2010.
* Last year the sale of Unilever's European frozen foods division to a private equity fund managed by Permira generated €1.2 billion in cash that was channeled directly into share buybacks and dividends.
* When Cescau announced the new round of 20,000 job cuts in Europe, he claimed this “shakeup” would generate €1.5 billion in cost savings that would deliver even greater “shareholder value” (click here to read IUF news).

OUTSOURCING & CASUALIZATION GREW: A Unilever presentation to investors in 2003 includes a slide entitled “Improving asset efficiency, releasing cash” where increased outsourcing of production from an average 15% to “25%+” is listed as an “achievement”. The emphasis is on the "+" which actually means at least 25% of production should be outsourced. As we've already seen, outsourcing and casualization have increased dramatically in the past five years. The logical outcome of this kind of growth is the example of Unilever's tea processing & packing plant in Khanewal, Pakistan, where 97% of the workforce is casual!

With all this outsourcing & casualization, maybe the number of workers employed in the manufacture and distribiution of Unilver products globally is still 300,000 or maybe even more. The only real change is that Unilever doesn’t recognize half the global workforce as employees, and doesn’t pay them the wages and benefits that unions have successfully fought for and negotiated. So the real growth that Unilever executives have focused on - the growth that transfers €30 billion into financial markets - is the growth of non-union workplaces. Without unions the new generation of Unilever workers aren’t able to fight for a share of growing profits and corporate cash flows. Maybe that’s the real strategy in the Path to Growth Strategy.