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

Introduction – Papadakis
above. This mismatch entails an important industrial relations dimension
and therefore is more likely to address the needs of both sets of actors.
IFAs may represent a solution, and this may explain why they are becoming
the subject of greater analysis in policy and research circles, including
under the aegis of international public institutions such as the ILO
and the EU (for example EU, 2005; Bé, this volume; Schömann et al.,
2007).
Historical benchmarks and factors contributing
to the evolution of IFAs
The first IFA was concluded in 1988 between the French enterprise
Danone (at the time BSN) and the IUF. Its precursors can be traced back
to the first transnational mobilization campaigns by international trade
secretariats (ITSs), the predecessors of GUFs, against specific operations
of MNEs in the 1960s and 1970s, and the subsequent creation of world
enterprise councils (the predecessors of today’s world works councils, or
WWCs). The WWCs were aimed at addressing the concerns of workers
affected by restructuring and technological change through a method of
worldwide coordinated bargaining, especially in the highly unionized
automotive, transport, food, and chemical and energy sectors. 6
The origins of IFAs also include self-regulatory endeavours adopted
by both public and private actors since the 1970s in response to heightened
awareness within the international policy community of the negative
externalities of economic activity — largely conducted by MNEs —
in respect of national sovereignty over natural resources, protection of the
environment, human rights and social justice. Publicly driven initiatives
include the 1976 Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development
(OECD) Guidelines, the 1977 ILO Tripartite Declaration of
Principles Concerning Multinational Enterprises and Social Policy, and
more recently the United Nations (UN) Global Compact, adopted in
2000. Privately driven initiatives mainly comprised the adoption of corporate
codes of conduct in United States-based MNEs, and, later, ISO 7 -
type social labelling. Both types of initiatives — public and private —
have always been strictly self-regulatory and voluntary.
6
See da Costa and Rehfeldt (2007); Gallin (this volume); also Bourque (2005).
7
International Organization for Standardization.
5