CROSS-BORDER SOCIAL DIALOGUE AND AGREEMENTS: An ...

Cross-border social dialogue and agreements
“soft” accountability mechanisms under the banner of corporate social
responsibility (CSR). 2 Among them, a small number of cross-border
instruments, referred to as “international framework agreements” (IFAs)
or “global framework agreements”, have emerged since the late 1980s.
They constitute the focus of the present volume.
IFAs can be found under different names, for example “agreement
on code of conduct” (IKEA in 1988); 3 “joint declaration on human
rights and working conditions” (BMW in 2005); “international framework
agreement” (EADS in 2005); “global framework agreement on the
development of good working conditions in operations worldwide” (Veidekke
in 2005). Their common element is that they are negotiated
instruments between MNEs and global union federations (GUFs),
namely international federations of national unions by sector of activity.
This volume deals mainly with various facets of IFAs. Yet it also
examines other efforts to introduce a global “social floor”, i.e., rights and
entitlements accessible to all workers in the global economy, through
cross-border organization, dialogue and regulation in specific sectors,
namely the maritime and textile sectors. It also addresses relevant issues
such as the possibility of cross-border solidarity action as a complement
to cross-border dialogue.
Data concerning IFAs
At the time of writing (December 2007), 62 IFAs existed in the
world, covering approximately 5.3 million workers. Detailed information
in this regard is provided in table 1 in the appendix. While the
number of IFAs is small compared with the number of unilateral codes
of conduct adopted by MNEs and with the global workforce of MNEs
(roughly 95 million excluding subcontractors and suppliers, according
to Kim, 2006), the pace at which IFAs have spread since 1988 when the
first such instrument was concluded has accelerated dramatically: whereas
23 IFAs were concluded from 1988 to 2002 (15 years), another 33 were
signed in the four-year period 2003–2006. By 2005, at least eight MNEs
2
This notion includes corporate codes of conduct, statements on business ethics, management standards,
monitoring initiatives and multi-stakeholder initiatives. For a brief overview, see Servais (2005).
3
A list of the enterprises and IFAs can be found in the appendix.
2