Europe is a multilingual continent. Slovakia is a multinational country. Even so, Kaufland, an international (grocery) company, is not respecting the variety of the regional languages, and refusing the use of the minority languages in the business communication!
There are 508 000 people in Slovakia, who's native language is hungarian. According to this, we're asking the management of the company to use the hungarian language in the supermarkets where they represent the majority of customers. Unfortunately, Kaufland has rejected any idea of the language pluralism, bilingual signs or prospects. In fact, the admin of their Facebook page said that we should be glad, because they don't banned the hungarian speaking between the employes.
The multilingual communications is not offensive and it's not insulting the rights of the majority. Kaufland's PR manager wrote, that the bilingual communication is too expensive for them, and their goal is to deliver the products cheap, not bilingual.
THIS IS UNACCEPTABLE!
If the company want's the money of the minority customers, than it should value and respect their language as well. If not, we're asking everybody to boycott their stores.
Please join our fight, visit our page, and follow next few easy steps :
1) PROTEST
Please publish the following short text on Kaufland's official fanpage (http://www.facebook.com/KauflandSlovenskaRepublika):
"Dear Kaufland! I have read and acknowledged Your decision to communicate with your customers in Slovakia only in Slovak language. Despite the fact that I respect your company, from today I will prefer doing business with companies where customer satisfaction is on the first place and where I feel that as a minority I'm important an honored enough to communicate with me in my own language. Thank you and wish you success!"
You can also share our viral picture, to let the world know about this problem!
2) SIGN our online petition here. The lobby will be much stronger if we demonstrate our power!
3) BOYCOTT every single Kaufland store in EU! They have no respect for our rights and needs.
4) FUNDRAISING - The company is trying to evade from the needs of hungarian customer with the argument, that the bilingual communication is too expensive. This is not an excuse for an international company with several hypermarkets all over the country.
As civil activists, we feel that our duty is to raise money for the bilingual signs. Together, we can show that the bilingualism can cost us only pennies. If you're able to support our fundraising, please do so through the PayPal link (at the bottom of the page). The donations will be sent to the account of slovakian movement Fontos vagy! mozgalom. The transaction is fully safe and free of any fees. Thank you.
Thank you for your support!