Global Sustainable Development:
The Corporate Responsibility
An Idea Whose Time Has Come
By Fred Higgs
 | | Sitting on palm branches, a boy strings tobacco leaves to be hung for drying at a tobacco plantation in the municipality of Santiago Ixcuintla, Mexico. (Photo courtesy of UNFIP/José Hernández-Claire)
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The organization I represent - the International Federation of Chemical Energy, Mine and General Workers’ Unions - was amongst the first of the global trade union federations to commit itself to the United Nations Global Compact initiated by Secretary-General Kofi Annan. The ICEM is also very active in the work of the International Labour Organization (ILO) and participated in a high-level meeting which brought together senior policy makers from government, industry and trade unions to discuss the promotion of the ILO Tripartite Declaration of Principles concerning multinational enterprises and social policy.
In addition to its active participation in such meetings, the Federation has for some time energetically pursued the promotion of joint global agreements with major companies within the industrial sectors in which our members work. To date, we have three such agreements: with Statoil, the Norwegian oil-and-gas multinational, with Freudenberg, the German-based multinational, producing elastomers and plastics; and with Endesa, one of the world’s major private electricity groups, with a wide range of other industrial interests. There are more in the pipeline, and we are confident that the number will grow steadily over the years.
There is a common thread to all of these activities. The ICEM is determined to play a constructive role in the development, promotion and monitoring of initiatives and agreements designed to promote the highest possible standards of corporate social responsibility. We do this from a unique perspective. The ICEM is not simply another non-governmental organization. We represent workers who have a vested interest in the sustainable future of the industries and companies in which they are employed. They can play a crucial role in helping to develop and give credibility to corporate responsibility commitments undertaken by companies.
In the past few years, there has been an explosive growth in the number of corporate responsibility statements, codes of practice and public commitments of other kinds. This has been matched by a considerable growth in scepticism about their worth, and the strength and depth of commitment of the companies that promulgated them. They, however, often remain statements of good intent. This will have to change, especially if they are to be taken seriously by the poor, the unrepresented, indigenous peoples, minorities, the old, the infirm, the young and those from developing countries. I am convinced that workplace agreements can make a significant contribution to the development and implementation of more effective corporate responsibility commitments.
Such agreements, to be effective and credible, will have to apply at every level, from the “shop floor” to corporate headquarters. The three agreements reached by the ICEM are designed to put a framework around the process and at the same time provide the necessary structure and mechanisms to ensure that they work in practice and involve all those upon whom corporate responsibility ultimately depends.
The ICEM represents organized workers in some of the most resource intensive, polluting and dangerous industries on the planet. And these industries are also some of the most economically important. This is why we believe that we have a special responsibility to engage with the employers in the industrial sectors in which our members work. And this is also why in our agreements and in all of our discussions we place particular emphasis on the highest possible standards and practices in the health, safety and environmental fields.
It is clear that we are still a long way from global wage agreements, but there are plenty of areas within the “social domain” that we believe should be taken out of the sphere of competition. These include, but are not necessarily limited to, health and safety at the workplace, environmental protection, the abolition of child labour, the empowerment of women and minorities, and the rights to join a trade union and to engage in collective bargaining. These are issues that we believe must be recognized as core principles and rights.
I am heartened by those companies that have stepped forward to be counted regarding their corporate obligations. The ICEM will work with, support and, as necessary, defend companies that work with it and its affiliated organizations to this end in good faith. We recognize that in a complex world of competing priorities, there will be problems from time to time. Provided good faith and necessary structures and mechanisms exist, these problems can be prevented from developing into crises. The problem currently is not so much the lack of public commitment by industry to the concept of corporate responsibility, but rather a lack of sufficiently robust, transparent and credible structures and mechanisms for ensuring that fine words are translated into measurable and monitorial deeds. Workers and their unions can help to render the process both more representative and more credible.
I believe that it is vital for the ICEM to actively seek out its natural interlocutors, whether these be multinational corporations or international employers associations and organizations. The workplace may not be the location of the whole of the sustainability challenge, but it most certainly will have to be the focus of the corporate response.
In summary, corporate social responsibility is an idea whose time has come. Its success will largely depend on a high degree of industrial cooperation - from the local to the global level - based on commonly agreed joint mechanisms and approaches between workers, their unions, employers and associations. It will also depend upon a high degree of sophistication and maturity from all concerned. The process does not have to be predominantly confrontational, as some of the leading corporations have already realized. But it will not always be easy. That is why it is vital that employers and trade unions develop effective and durable approaches so that when difficulties arise, trust, openness and honesty do not become the first victims.
At the launch of the Global Compact initiative in July 2000 in New York, which I attended, the UN Secretary-General said: “Labour unions can mobilize the workforce - for, after all, companies are not composed only of their executives.” The ICEM has indicated that it is ready and willing to rise to this challenge.
Links:
International Federation of Chemical Energy, Mine and General Workers’ Unions
United Nations Global Compact
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Fred Higgs is General Secretary of the ICEM and since 1967 has been a member of the Transport and General Workers’ Union - an ICEM British affiliate. He served on the European Commission’s Ad Hoc Advisory Committee on the Chemical Industry. He has a lifetime’s experience in practical trade unionism at all levels.
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