1. No category

Making Internationalism at Work:
The politics and institutionalisation of labour
internationalism in terms of the influence and
uses of transnational collective agreements in
the UK
Miguel Martinez Lucio & Stephen Mustchin
Paper presented to RDW Geneva
July 2015
Introduction and overview
• Globalisation, MNCs and labour
transnationalism
• Forms of labour transnationalism - optimism
and pessimism
• Empirical research – four cases of
transnational union activity
• Internationalism – institutional and informal
dimension
Transnational union activity:
forms and rationale
• Union organisation limited by national boundaries, rise of MNCs
necessitating transnational links especially with whipsawing
• Levinson (1972) and three phases of co-ordination: solidarity networks,
co-ordination of collective bargaining, integrated collective bargaining
driven by international union bodies and MNC senior management.
• Competition among workers within MNCs as a major barrier, whipsawing
• Convergence of employment practices, or an increasingly diverse
organisation of employment?
• Examples of information sharing networks for unions within
multinationals, links to social movements and NGOs (Gordon and Turner, 2000;
Waterman and Simms, 2004)
• International Framework Agreements (IFAs), EWCs and WWCs – some
(limited) forms of international industrial relations emerging?
Transnational union
and labour organisations
Worker organisations
• European Trade Union Confederation (ETUC) – founded 1973, social partner
status within EU policy process
• ITUC – formed in 2006 following the merger of the International Confederation
of Free Trade Unions and the World Confederation of Labour
• ITSs/ Global Union Federations, e.g. IndustriALL; IUF (International Union of
Food Workers); ITF (International Transport Workers’ Federation); Building and
Woodworkers International (BWI); UNI (service sector)
• European level trade union federations
• Workers Uniting
• Greater informal and direct communication between workers
Transnational forums within the company and between the state
• International Labour Organisation (ILO) – emergence of labour standards and a
rhetoric of regulation at a global level
• European Works Councils (EWCs)– in EU firms in at least 2 countries with 1000+
workers, transnational organisations for information and consultation purposes
• World Works Councils (WWCs) – existed in some multinationals since 1960s,
most commonly in auto manufacturing industry
The debate on European Works
Councils: optimism vs pessimism
• Significant debate between optimists and pessimists regarding EWCs
• Legal basis, (quite) widespread uptake, presence in approximately 40% of
eligible MNCs, basis for development of new forms of internationalism
• Formalised transnational structures, information exchange and networks
of employee representatives, step towards regulating employment at
transnational level
However
• Internal hierarchies through full time officers of the trade union and the
disconnection between EWCs and trade union action
• External hierarchical relations between dominant EU unions – some
national unions have the resources and national influence to dominate
the EWC at the expense of other national union representatives
• Many EWCs dominated by management – power relations
Labour transnationalism:
opportunities and concerns
•
•
•
Unions are beginning to develop transnational strategies linking workers in
multiple countries (e.g. Hauptmeier and Greer 2008) ; first steps towards new forms of
international representation and voice within firms?
Greater sharing of information and joined up strategies on the union side of
different MNCs
Trade union international liaisons: ETUC and international sectoral federations are
creating dialogue and strategies between the EWCs of different companies
(Pulignano, 2006)
However:
• International fora as ‘talking shops’ (Wills, 2000) or focused on ‘investment politics’?
(Tuckman and Whittall, 2002)
•
Not always tied to any effective decision making (Marginson and Sisson, 2004;
Waddington 2011)
•
•
Context of weak corporate governance (Deakin et al, 2006) and weak consultation
culture at firm and policy level
Optimistic analysis needs to be tempered by acknowledging ‘the way capitalism
combines the commodification of nature, money and labor, and thereby destroys
the very ground upon which a ‘counter-movement’ could be built.’ (Burawoy, 2010)
International Framework Agreements –
overview of an example of new
internationalism
• International Framework Agreements (IFAs) – originating in 1980s,
proliferation after 2000 (Hammer, 2005; Papadakis, 2011)
• Aim to secure core labour rights across MNC supply chains
• Global Union Federations and national union structures, along with
EWCs and employers associations – key bodies involved
• Distinction between “rights” and “bargaining” agreements
• Predominantly European firms have IFAs in place – US and Japanese
multinationals generally uncooperative
• Examples of MNCs with IFAs: Danone (France), Accor (France),
Chiquita(US) (IUF); Volkswagen, Daimler, Rheinmetall, Bosch, BMW
(Germany), Renault (France), EADS (Netherlands). Statoil (Norway),
AngloGold (South Africa), Eni (Italy), Lukoil (Russia) (IndustriALL), G4S
(UK) (UNI); IKEA (Sweden) (BWI); Inditex (Spain) (IndustriALL) (see
http://www.global-unions.org/ for fuller list)
Dynamics of international
and European framework agreements
IFAs and EFAs 1988-2013 (Rehfeldt, 2015)
TCAs
IFAs
IFAs
by
European
TNCs
Sign.
EWC
WWC
ETUF
EFAs
Sign.
EWC
Sign.
EWC
alone
Sign.
EWC+
ETUF
Sign.
ETUF
alone
1988-2011
226
115
95
13
111
81
54
17
13
2012-2013
41
25
23
4
16
11
9
2
3
1988-2013
267
140
118
17
127
92
63
19
16
• 118 of the 140 IFAs in MNCs from continental Europe, mainly from Germany
and France (only 1 British IFA in 2008)
• All except 10 (8 Spanish) IFAs signed in MNCs with an EWC
• 12 IFAs in the metal industry co-signed by EWCs (11 German TNCs)
Problems and tensions within IFAs
• Considerable transnational activity from unions – international solidarity,
IFAs, information sharing and links to social movements
• Disconnect between GUFs and local/ national unions? (Bronfenbrenner 2007)
• Official international labour and union organisation critiqued as “labor
bureaucracy three times removed” (Moody, 1997: 229)
• Legal status of IFAs? Enforceable?
• Internalising general standards and codes which may emerge in a vacuous
manner and not be linked to an ongoing dialogue
• IFAs threatened, removed in cases of takeovers by e.g US MNCs, private
equity firms? (Dehnen and Pries, 2014)
• MNC home country ideologies/ employment relations “cultures” key to
success or otherwise of union internationalism
• Sizeable number of mainly European firms keen to sign IFAs, promote ILO
conventions – linked to CSR, place within EU, concerns with production
process linked to image
• Some potential tensions between international union structures dominated
by representatives from global North that are concerned with labour issues
in global South
Empirical research and case studies
• European Action on Transnational Company
Agreements (EURACTA) work funded by the European
Commission
• 7 country study (UK, Italy, Spain, Germany, France,
Bulgaria, Poland)
• Core case studies in auto manufacturing and financial
services; UK empirical research into other sectors
• Focus on the implementation and local ‘meaning’ of
IFAs/ TCAs
• Completed
February
2015:
final
report
http://www.ires.it/files/upload/Euracta2_Final%20report_0.pdf
Case 1: Volkswagen/ Bentley
• Bentley Motors – acquired by VW in 1998, major expansion of
production
• Move away from ‘traditional’ IR, ‘hierarchy of poshness’, more
consultative management approach
• Global Works Council, EWC, strong influence of IG Metall – IFAs
including Social Charter, agreement on temp agency labour
• Unite/ formerly AUEW – union convenor active internationally, visit
during Chattanooga dispute
• Integrated, strongly regulated MNC, relatively developed transnational
agreements and institutional forms
• Influence over investment decisions, attempts to shift production
• EWC as major conduit for information: ‘we never have a briefing about
what happens in Europe, we have briefings within the firm, we get
briefed to death sometimes…but nothing gets brought from Europe
from the company, it’s all from the EWC representative.’ (Unite
representative)
• Explicit rejection of co-determination at local level
Case 2: Santander
• Spanish MNC, UK subsidiary from merger of Alliance and
Leicester, Abbey National, Bradford and Bingley
• Conflictual IR, union derecognition pre-takeover, move to
more consultative approach
• Motivations: ‘there is absolutely no way they want any
industrial unrest in the UK’; major emphasis on customer
service: ‘you don't deliver customer satisfaction if you piss
your workforce off.’ (CWU national officer)
• 2 unions, EWC, three TCAs (‘social rights’, equalities, misselling); involvement of CWU with UNI-Global
• Attempts to expand agreements into wider IFA, problems
and conflict in N and S America, barriers
• Attempted use of TCA to secure representation/
recognition in UK subsidiaries – problems
• Sustained links developing between UK union/EWC reps
and Spanish counterparts, new networks, increasing
sharing of positions on organisation of work and wider firm
Case 3: Unilever
• No formal IFA – ‘Barcelona agenda’ EWC agreements on equalities,
health and ‘socially responsible restructuring’
• Historical hostility to transnational union activity, bargaining (Croucher and
Cotton, 2012)
• Production in over 100 countries, 400 brands, complex supply chains –
highly fragmented
• Union recognition in UK – bargaining scope limited, strong
headquarter influence
• IUF campaigns – precarious work, India and Pakistan
• Company CSR policy, ‘ethical’ emphasis – vulnerability to bad publicity
‘[Unilever] haven’t come up with a fundamental reason not to at this stage,
other than ‘we need to go and think about it’, it really depends on, on what
terms? We won’t be interested in anything that’s a whitewashing exercise, all
flowery language and ‘we’ll agree to meet but we won’t do anything’, so we’d
want something that commits them a), to regular meetings, and b) to set up
joint working groups, on particular issues.’ (Unite/ IUF representative)
• Regular meetings with IUF, access to senior management - ‘Functional
equivalent’ of TCA?
Case 4: G4S
• Only UK-headquartered MNC with an IFA
• Signed following SEIU campaigns in US and support for campaigns in
South Asia, Africa (McCallum, 2013)
• GMB and Uni-Global as signatories
• EWC role, campaigns, mechanism for raising issues in G4S subsidiaries
• Limited use of IFA in UK context but referenced in negotiations
‘[the IFA] does allow us to really hold the company to account and say to the
company ‘well, we have a global agreement and you're not adhering to that in
the UK on certain things.’…if the negotiations are out of step with the core ethos
that's actually running through that agreement, you have got another leverage.’
(GMB G4S national officers)
• UK union involvement in work in India, Malawi, Colombia, wider
support from UNI affiliates supporting organising campaigns
• Company motivation – bad publicity, fear of losing public sector
outsourcing contracts
• Tensions – anti-G4S campaigns, other unions supportive of e.g Stop
G4S
Internationalism, institutionalisation
and informality
• IFAs – new dimension of transnational employment
regulation in MNCs
• Initial findings: TCAs may have low profile but can be
supportive of international networking, alliances between
national unions
• Need for strong institutional support from national unions,
EWCs, wider campaigning networks?
• Problems – some GUFs reviewing IFAs, many examples of
breaches, lack of enforcement, generic principles
• More campaigning, more critical approaches possible in
absence of IFA?
Conclusions
• Pessimism: drawing on wider surveys, evident
limitations of EWCs, fragmentation of
international labour, and weaknesses in some
IFAs
• Pessimism:
regarding
traditional
union
formations and international links in light of
global capitalism and MNCs
• It is not too difficult to write-off this dimension of
international trade unionism as symbolic and
minimal – reflecting some of the pessimistic
features of the European Works Councils debate.
However:
• Need to explore internationalism more closely in terms of
dynamics of individual firms, local union strategies and
wider links and alliances
• Does not lead, necessarily, into a proximity with
management that undermines trade union autonomy
• Much depends on key capabilities and individuals linking
the local union level and the transnational level together
• How supports and networks emerge in and around - and
between - local unions activists in terms of international
work is important
• There is a more subtle referencing of TCAs and framing of
negotiating processes which emerge at key points
• There are moments of ‘IFA-invisibility’ and ‘low awareness’ yet we see
critical incidents and referencing of these frameworks at key moments in
terms of worker rights (e.g. employment agencies, social rights and
representation) – they are invoked and appear more explicitly at certain
times
• IFAs and the move to IFAs create real and virtual forums and
expectations about rights and the behaviour of management within
trade unions
• How they are framed around campaigning and mobilisation – how linked
to a broader body of trade union action - as part of portfolio of
strategies making it possible to link up to different actions is seen to be
important in activating these frameworks
• This points to the need to maybe move the lens of analysis onto the
trade union itself in terms of how it allows and facilitates local action
and broader social activity and how it connects them horizontally - let
alone vertically - inside and outside the union
References
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