The rights to organise and to bargain collectively about labour conditions are fundamental labour and human rights, anchored in international and national legislation and regulatory measures. Multinational companies are expected to comply with that legislation and those regulatory measures.
Increasing numbers of multinational enterprises recognise the right of their employees to organise in trade unions. Unfortunately, that recognition often does not go further than confirming in codes of conduct that employees within their companies will suffer no disadvantage whether they organise themselves or not.
Multinational companies can and should do more
In many countries, trade union freedom is not guaranteed and trade unions and employees wishing to organise themselves get into a fix. The opinion of FNV is that the responsibility of multinationals goes further than publishing the principles of trade union freedom on their websites. Multinationals can do more than this relatively easily.
The website tradeunionfreedom.fnvcompanymonitor.nl gives multinationals and employees insight into obstacles to trade union freedom and into opportunities multinationals have to do just a little more to realise real trade union freedom. To the benefit of the companies as well as their employees. Because a transparent attitude and clear social policies, within one’s own company and in the production chain, lead to better and more stable relationships with employees and suppliers.
Let's start, a manual, gives an overview of challenges and possible solutions with regard to trade union freedom. Our research reports provide accounts of how trade union freedom is being affected by casualisation of labour.
