Workers set to take on corporate power

By Alan George

BRUSSELS: The "battle in Seattle" over the World Trade Organization meeting and the disturbances during the IMF meeting in Washington coupled with last weekend's anti-capitalism demonstration in London may or may not say much about the "freedom to protest" in the western world, but they probably do say something about the growing unease among many people in the west about unfettered international capital.

Many international companies do already have codes of corporate conduct governing their behavior. But Fred Higgs, the recently elected General Secretary of the Brussels-based International Federation of Chemical, Energy, Mine and General Workers' Unions (ICEM), insists that in the global business environment these codes should be underpinned by global agreements with trade unions.

The European Commission's 1995 European Works Council directive already requires all companies with at least 150 employees operating in more than one EU member state to establish a forum for workers' representatives to meet.

"Bearing in mind all that cost and organizational effort, it's not a major step for a company to make them global, rather than European," said Higgs aware of the perception in some quarters that companies behave better in parts of the world where scrutiny is tough and take a more cavalier attitude in parts of the world where it is not.

Some companies have already taken the EU directive over the Union borders. The multinational chemical combine ICI's works council, for example, already includes Poland and Hungary.

The Works Council Directive had been "quite a revolutionary development in Europe", said Higgs.

"It has created a tendency for companies to deal with unions globally and ICEM will be looking to approach companies with existing works councils to try to make them global."

And he has the international mining giant Rio Tinto in his sights. Rio Tinto already has its own code and, while ICEM has held informal talks with the company about a global agreement, the union is taking a more robust approach later this month.

As a big institutional investor, through its own pension fund, the ICEM is taking on corporate power at its own game and is looking to exert shareholder pressure on Rio Tinto at the company's annual meeting on May 10 in an effort to force the company to see things its way.

ICEM has organized two resolutions at the meeting on May 10; one calls for the appointment of an independent non-executive chairman and the other on the company to adhere to the International Labour Organization's conventions on human rights.

The union has already signed an accord with the Norwegian- based oil multinational Statoil and is optimistic that it will soon reach agreement with the International Council of Chemical Associations (ICCA), which links chemical companies worldwide. ICEM is also talking to Shell and BP-Amoco.

"The very fact that such talks are under way is significant," says ICEM's Higgs. "Five years ago companies like this would not have been interested."

Rio Tinto for its part is prepared for the shareholders' ambush next week. A spokesman said on Wednesday the resolution calling for an independent non-executive chairman was difficult to understand.

"The Rio Tinto board already includes a strong, independent element headed by Richard Giordano who is, and will remain, a deputy chairman and the senior non-executive director," said the spokesman who went on to say that Rio Tinto's statement of business practice went further than many other corporate codes.

"It explicitly states Rio Tinto's support for the United Nation's Universal Declaration of Human Rights and that employees, among other provisions, will have the right to choose whether or not they wish to be represented collectively."

But Higgs is adamant global agreements with unions would provide an additional discipline in company structures.

And considering the growing unease about the power and wealth of global corporations these global agreements could solve many of their difficulties in relation to accountability and credibility.

"In the end, conflict is in no one's interest", he stressed. "Global agreements are as good for the companies as they are for the workers and for the wider society in which these companies must operate."

-- Observer News Service