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

International framework agreements: A reassessment – Dan Gallin
travelled to Karachi officially representing the IUF and helped to bring
about negotiations between the union and the company. These negotiations
resulted in the reinstatement of the dismissed workers and of the
union’s general secretary, as well as in the first ever collective bargaining
agreement reached between any union and employer in Karachi.
In May 1964, the issue of TNCs was on the agenda of the 14th Congress
of the IUF in Stockholm, which adopted the following Resolution on
International Collective Bargaining:
The Fourteenth Statutory Congress of the International Union of Food
and Allied Workers’ Associations, meeting in Stockholm from May 27 to
30, 1964:
CONSIDERING the dominant position of international companies in all
aspects of economic and social life;
CONSIDERING the growing ability of such companies to mobilize their
full international potential in collective bargaining with single national
unions;
CONSIDERING the threat arising to national trade union organizations
from inadequate communication and coordination in their dealings with
international companies;
DIRECTS the Executive Committee to take all appropriate measures to
secure the recognition of the IUF as an international negotiating body and
to perfect an appropriate procedure for conducting international negotiations
in the food and allied industries under IUF sponsorship.
Following the congress, the IUF approached BAT with a proposal
to establish a permanent joint negotiating body, but did not obtain a positive
response. However, the IUF continued to organize international
coordination at TNC level, typically in the context of a conflict situation.
One such action was in support of a strike by the US Bakery and
Confectionary Workers’ Union in October 1969 against the National
Biscuit Co. (Nabisco), involving unions from 10 countries in which
Nabisco had subsidiaries. The strike was successfully ended two weeks
after the initial call for international solidarity.
The 16th IUF Congress held in Zurich in July 1970 again noted
the concentration of power taking place at international company level
and stressed the need to strengthen union cooperation at that level. It
called for regular meetings of unions representing workers in the major
TNCs as well as for ad hoc meetings in emergencies and for exchanges
of union delegations to observe each other’s negotiations within the
same TNC.
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