AN EXERCISE IN WORLDMAKING 2009 - ISS

40 EVA SABATE
tion of Multinational Enterprise (MNE) labour standards performance.
Last, some relevant conclusions will be highlighted.
Codes of conduct are one of the key instruments of CSR. Defined by
the ILO as ‘companies’ policy statements that define ethical standards for their conduct’,
they have been strongly criticized in the related literature. Nevertheless,
their voluntary feature and the limited enforcement mechanisms to
ensure that the included statements are translated into practice are the
most important shortcomings that will be stressed in this essay. In an
attempt to overcome some of those limitations, International Framework
Agreements have appeared as a relatively new phenomenon in the
CSR scene. In the recent years, Global Union Federations (GUFs) have
been embarked in its negotiation with the aim to achieve international
labour relations in an increasingly globalized context (Sobczak, 2006).
Even the fact that they are not legally binding, IFAs are regarded in
many senses as an improvement for the enforcement of workers’ rights.
Given that they are negotiated and signed between social partners, IFAs
have a higher legitimacy than company codes, which are mainly a unilateral
declaration of management principles. IFAs also formalize the participation
of GUFs in the implementation of the agreement, which is of
special importance due to the lack of global regulation. Moreover, they
promote the recognition of local unions as social bargaining partners at
the local level, and strengthening their workers’ protection capacity. Instead
of being implemented and monitored by management or external
social auditors, the implementation of IFAs are undertaken together with
trade union organisations and are mainly dialogue-based, allowing a
greater representation of workers’ voices and independent monitoring.
However, IFAs present also important shortcomings in terms of enforcement
since they still depend on soft mechanisms such as conflict
resolution and joint problem solving (Schoemann et al., 2008). Moreover,
companies which have been engaged in IFA negotiations are predominantly
those that already have good industrial relations at the workplace,
take responsibility for their supply chain and are open minded
about trade union activities (Hellman 2007).
As the Inditex case will be used to bring practical examples of the differences
among both instruments, the following is an overview introduction
to the company’s key features. Industrias de Diseño Textil S.A. (Textile
Design Industries, Inc.) was founded in La Corunya, Spain in 1975. The
company is one of the world's largest fashion groups and the first Euro-