H&M Ghlin Workers Accept Deal, Ending Months-Long Labor Dispute

Workers at the H&M Logistics distribution center in Ghlin, Belgium, voted overwhelmingly on Monday to accept management’s proposals for a collective redundancy plan, bringing an end to a bitter labor dispute that began with the surprise announcement of the site’s closure in March. The vote — 306 in favor, 17 against, and one abstention — clears the way for phased layoffs affecting 440 employees at the facility near Mons.

Background: A Sudden Closure

H&M Logistics announced on 5 March its intention to close the Ghlin distribution center, which served as a European logistics hub sending garments to approximately 500 stores across seven countries. The closure was part of H&M’s broader strategy to consolidate Southern European logistics operations into two centers in Torrejón, Spain, and Casalpusterlengo, Italy, citing overcapacity, digitization, and changing customer behavior.

The announcement came as a shock to workers. Moussa Khalid, a CNE union delegate with 17 years at the company, told DHNet at the time: “We didn’t see it coming. H&M is a solid company. At no point did they mention financial difficulties.” He also pointed to internal management problems, noting the site had “five directors in ten years.”

Escalation: Blockade and Lock-Out

Tensions escalated sharply in late May when management attempted to urgently ship 720,000 items out of the 1.2 million in stock to Spanish and Italian facilities. Unions viewed this as an attempt to remove their bargaining leverage. Workers blocked access to the site, bringing operations to a standstill.

“Our economic leverage is precisely these goods,” Dani Garcia, a FGTB delegate, told RTBF at the time. “If they leave now, we have no more means of pressure.”

The situation took an extraordinary turn on 5 June when H&M management declared a “lock-out” — an employer-initiated shutdown — citing safety concerns and alleging union attempts to sequester a management member, claims unions formally denied. Economist Guillaume Vermeylen of UMons described the tactic as “very rare” in Belgian labor relations, calling it “a sort of reverse strike.”

The Vote and Agreement

Following renewed negotiations under Belgium’s Renault procedure for collective redundancies, management presented a final proposal that workers accepted on Monday. Union delegate Moussa Khalid captured the mood with a mixture of resignation and pragmatism: “It’s not what we wanted, but it’s not a bad agreement, it’s a mediocre agreement. So we accept it as it is.”

Bertrand Delplanque, SETCa Regional Secretary for Mons-Borinage, had earlier stated the workers’ position: “The workers of Ghlin have already accepted the unacceptable: the closure of their company. They have the right to obtain a social plan commensurate with the harm they are suffering.”

What Comes Next

Multiple phases of layoffs will now be initiated, with retraining and reemployment support cells set up to help the 440 workers transition to new jobs. The Ghlin site still holds approximately five million garments that must be distributed before the planned closure in autumn 2026.

The dispute is part of a broader wave of industrial actions in Belgium’s Hainaut region in 2026, including at Husqvarna (Ghislenghien), Thy-Marcinelle (Charleroi), and Air Liquide. The concentration of closures in Wallonia — one of Belgium’s economically disadvantaged areas with higher-than-average unemployment — has raised questions about regional economic policy and the social safety net for displaced workers. Many couples worked at the same Ghlin site, meaning dual job losses for some households, compounding the economic impact on the community.

Broader Implications

H&M’s consolidation reflects wider trends in European retail logistics: centralization, automation, and cost optimization. Workers at Ghlin expressed concerns about competition from lower-wage Eastern European logistics hubs, with Khalid telling DHNet that a new automated hub in Czechia with wages around €500 per month represented “a social drama to come elsewhere.”

For the workers of Ghlin, the agreement brings a measure of closure to a months-long ordeal that saw them fight not just for fair severance terms, but for dignity in the face of a corporate restructuring they felt was mishandled from the start. As the phased layoffs begin, the effectiveness of the reemployment support cells will be closely watched as a test case for how Belgium manages industrial transition in an increasingly competitive European market.