Organizing for Rights in Transnational Companies

1
Organizing for Rights in Transnational Companies
2
Transnational company work

• IUF has prioritized two forms of activity in this
  area. First and more traditional
• Campaigns or actions against companies that
  attack basic rights

3
Recent campaigns and actions

• Shangri-La
• Interbrew, Montenegro
• Nestlé Korea
• Nestlè Russia
• Pearl Continental
• Coca Cola, Guatemala
• Coca Cola Russia
• Pepsi, Guatemala
• Sky Chefs, USA
• Cambodia hotels (Raffles, Interconti)

4
That is our traditional campaign/solidarity
activity. It is critical but no longer enough

• Second major area of activity therefore is...
• Proactive action and strategies aimed at
  transnational companies
• What does it mean?
• How is it developed within the IUF?

5
Proactive IUF company strategy has basically
four stages

1. Organize through affiliates and build strength
   within the company (ongoing and permanent
   activity)
2. Negotiate for international recognition from the
   target company
3. Move to international bargaining
4. Then use this to..
5. Organize through affiliates some more!

6
Organize - the role of union education...

• Use education projects to
• Strengthen existing affiliated unions
• Build new unions and recruit them
• Recruitment of those unions to IUF
• Company networks (e.g. in Coca-Cola through
  global and regional project meetings)

7
Negotiating recognition

• Area of major progress in recent years
• Achieved through seizing and building on
  opportunities, following-up on conflicts,
  maintaining contact with companies and dogged and
  determined negotiations

8
Recognition 1997

• Where were we in 1997?
• Danone (formal)
• Accor (formal)
• Nestlé (formally limited to Europe but informally
  wider)
• Coca-Cola (informal, irregular and limited having
  arisen from major successful international
  campaigns against Coca Cola over past years)

9
Recognition 2003

• Where are we today?
• 31companies and growing
• Danone
• Accor
• Nestlé
• Coca-Cola
• British American Tobacco
• Chiquita Brands International
• Club Méditerannée
• Compass

10

• Del Monte Fresh Produce
• Fonterra (formerly New Zealand Dairy Board, a
  major dairy transnational)
• Fyffes
• Hershey Foods
• Imperial Tobacco
• Interbrew
• Japan Tobacco International
• Kraft Foods
• Syngenta
• Cargill
• ADM
• Barry Callebaut

11

• Mars
• Parmalat
• Philip Morris International
• Scandinavian Tobacco Company
• Altadis
• Sodexho
• South African Breweries
• Dimon Tobacco Leaf Processors
• Standard Tobacco Leaf Processors
• Univeral Tobacco Leaf Processors
• Shangri-La Hotel Corporation

12
Company recognition of the IUF 1997 - 2003
13
Bargaining..

• About what issues?
• Not workplace issues but more over ..
• Rights and space inside the company
• Space for..
• Rights to form and join unions
• Rights to collective bargaining
• No discrimination, child and forced labour etc

14
What does negotiating mean?

• Agreed rights through negotiations with
  companies corporate headquarters (specific cases
  on general)
• Agreed rights standards through formal agreements
  with companies corporate headquarters
• Clarifying what the those rights standards
  actually mean (e.g. North America)
• Establishing agreed union/company mechanisms for
  enforcing those standards
• Negotiating agreed remedial action when those
  standards are not met

15
8 formal IUF international worker rights
agreements

• Danone
• Union Rights
• Equality
• Training
• Information
• Restructuring and employment
• Accor union rights
• Chiquita Rights, employment and health and
  safety
• Fonterra Rights, employment and health and
  safety

16
4 formal IUF/Company agreements to end
conflicts

• Del Monte Guatemala (2001)
• Interbrew Montenegro (Dubrovnik Agreement)
  (2002)
• Shangri-La Hotels Indonesia (2003)
• Raffles, Cambodia

17
Is there value in international union
Recognition and Negotiation?

• Pointless in itself
• Only of value if it feeds back into our
  affiliates organizing and into winning at work
• This then strengthens our capacity to negotiate
  still more space

18
Examples of what this means

• 5.000 new union members in Chiquita/Colombia
• additional members in ACCOR/Australia
• union protected in Nestlè/Russia
• union remains and existence in Raffles/Cambodia
• more unionised members in Danone/Turkey
• saving union members jobs in Del Monte/Guatemala
• new union members in Coca Cola/Russia
• union membership protected in Philip
  Morris/Russia
• growing union membership in Independent Hotel
  Union Indonesia(following Shangri-La success)
• collective agreement and new members in ACCOR/New
  York
• defending working conditions Nestlè/Germany