Global Unions to Step up Action on Corporate Social Responsibility

By ICFTU

At a meeting in Stockholm, members of the Global Unions* group of international trade union organisations agreed to step up their work to ensure that businesses live up to their social responsibilities.

Delegates from 11 international trade union bodies and their national affiliates from 20 countries took part in the meeting called to consider the Corporate Social Responsibility phenomenon, The meeting was hosted by the ICFTU-affiliated Landsorganisationen i Sverige (LO-Sweden).

The trade unions are concerned that while some companies are taking their responsibilities seriously, others prefer to hide behind public relations exercises which emphasise corporate philanthropy but do nothing to ensure that workers in their operations and supply chains are allowed to exercise their right to form and join unions so they can bargain for decent wages and conditions.

In her opening address to the meeting, LO-Sweden President Wanja Lundby-Wedin criticised the growing practice of multinational enterprises investing in export processing zones, often based on promises by governments to ensure the zones are guaranteed union-free, and called for "coordinated international trade union action for full employment, decent work and respect of core labour standards".

Global Unions is the grouping of international trade union organisations comprising the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions, the Global Union Federations, and the Trade Union Advisory Committee to the OECD.