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

Cross-border social dialogue and agreements
also discussed the issue of IFAs and their relevance for global social dialogue
and concluded: “Freely negotiated agreements between employers and
workers’ organisations, including international framework agreements
(IFAs), promote social dialogue and core labour standards in accordance
with the provisions of the ILO Declaration” (ILO, 2005b, para. 12).
As these examples show, sectoral meetings can provide a privileged
space for dialogue on IFAs by the two sides of an industry. At present, the
main achievement of sectoral meetings as regards IFAs has been to allow
dissemination of information and sharing of experience about the instruments.
It must be stressed that discussions on IFAs during sectoral meetings
so far have been initiated by participants and have not officially been
put on the agenda. A more targeted and proactive promotion of IFAs
through these gatherings by the ILO itself therefore might generate additional
results.
For instance, sectoral meetings could be more widely used to allow
the tripartite constituents to become familiar with IFAs, namely what
they are, what they are not, their objectives, their typical content, and
how they have been implemented on the ground up until now. This
might in turn dispel some misconceptions and fears about IFAs, notably
on the part of enterprises. More generally, the dissemination during meetings
of information on social dialogue and respect for fundamental labour
rights in global production chains can also increase opportunities for participants
to learn about good practices and reflect on the possibility of
promoting them or integrating them into their operations.
Sectoral meetings might also present opportunities to actually negotiate
agreements or some sort of joint understanding on fundamental
labour rights. First, they offer a forum for GUFs and other workers’ representatives
to make an initial contact with representatives from MNCs
taking part in the meetings and to evaluate the latter’s receptiveness to the
idea of negotiating IFAs and becoming partners with GUFs in transnational
social dialogue. Second, participants could also call for the negotiation
of IFAs by social partners in a specific sector inside a resolution,
jointly draft a model agreement, and recommend its adoption and observation
to social partners in the sector. Another option would be to adopt
a common statement on fundamental labour rights and CSR complemented
by a follow-up procedure, as the European social partners have
done in several sectors. 22
22
See for instance EuroCommerce and UNI-Europa Commerce (2003).
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