Transnational Alliances for Negotiating International Framework Agreements: Power Relations and Bargaining Processes between Global Union Federations and European Works Councils
| Author | Veronika Dehnen |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/bjir.12038 |
| Date | 01 September 2013 |
| Published date | 01 September 2013 |
Transnational Alliances for Negotiating
International Framework Agreements:
Power Relations and Bargaining
Processes between Global Union
Federations and European
Works Councils
Veronika Dehnen
Abstract
Why should European Works Councils (EWCs) discuss the International
Labour Organisation’s core labour standards? With respect to their legal duties,
EWCs are information and consultation bodies on European topics. In practice,
they can become main actors in negotiating and implementing international
framework agreements (IFAs) about core labour standards in multinational
companies. Using theoretical models of internal and inter-organizational bar-
gaining, the author highlights the role of those European bodies that work
together with Global Union Federations (GUFs) during negotiations. In order
to analyse the different forms of actors’ involvement in negotiations, empirical
data from a content analysis of all IFAs, as well as three company case studies,
will be presented. It will be argued that internal bargaining between EWCs and
GUFs influences negotiations with management. Furthermore, the article dis-
cusses the role of norms and institutions that shape internal as well as inter-
organizational bargaining processes, and lead to different forms of involvement
of employee representation bodies.
1. Introduction
The internationalization of multinational companies (MNCs) leads to new
challenges regarding local, national, as well as transnational labour regula-
tion. Due to the fact that companies operate within different national
Veronika Dehnen is at Ruhr-University Bochum.
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British Journal of Industrial Relations doi: 10.1111/bjir.12038
51:3 September 2013 0007–1080 pp. 577–600
© John Wiley & Sons Ltd/London School of Economics 2013. Published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd,
9600 Garsington Road, Oxford OX4 2DQ, UK and 350 Main Street, Malden, MA 02148, USA.
contexts with diverse legal rules and normative expectations, a phenomenon
arose during the 1990s that companies committed themselves to maintaining
international minimum labour standards through voluntary codes of
conduct. Since the Global Union Federations (GUFs) regarded those volun-
tary codes as insufficient, and since employee representation bodies were not
involved, GUFs started their own approach to regulate working conditions
in MNCs. Through negotiations with company management, different
GUFs began to sign the so-called International Framework Agreements
(IFAs). Those IFAs shall be used as a company-wide framework to respect
the International Labour Organisation’s (ILO) core labour standards (see,
e.g., Hammer 2005; Papadakis et al. 2008; Platzer et al. 2009). IFAs have
been developed as a tool for trade unions to be involved in framing, imple-
menting and monitoring companies’ regulation of international core labour
standards. Furthermore, GUFs see those agreements as a possibility to
strengthen trade unions at the local level of the company (Helfen and Fichter
2013; Miller 2008).
Currently, 87 MNCs (own calculation) have signed IFAs with GUFs.
Furthermore, own research shows that, in addition to GUFs, other bodies of
employee representation have signed agreements on ILO principles as well,
and have done so either together with GUFs or as sole negotiation partners;
especially, European Works Councils (EWCs) have become negotiation
partners for agreements on ILO core conventions (see also Pries 2010b;
Schömann et al. 2008; Telljohann et al. 2009). Thus, the question arises, how
internal negotiations and co-operation take place between GUFs and EWCs,
as well as between other collective actors that represent employees’ interests.
Although there is rich scientific research about negotiations on IFAs, it is
largely neglected that the actors on the employees’ side may follow different
strategies in their negotiations. As will be discussed in Section 2, most scien-
tific research defines GUFs, national trade unions, EWCs and other actors
involved as one ‘workers bloc’ with common ideas and strategies, but
research on co-operation within EWCs shows that different national institu-
tions on industrial relations have to be co-ordinated within the EWC to be
able to act as a European body (see recently Da Costa et al. 2012). The same
is true for co-operation between different European and global bodies of
employee representation when trying to negotiate IFAs with management;
internal negotiations inevitably take place that influence actors’ configura-
tion and negotiations with management. This aspect of internal negotiations
will be highlighted further in this article.
It will be argued that the negotiation process of the agreements can be
explained as involving all employee representation bodies of the company, as
well as norms and institutions of labour regulation within the company being
analysed. As the definition broadens, all the possible actors involved, as well
as agreements that were not signed by GUFs but by EWCs or other employee
representation bodies, are included in the analysis as well. A special focus will
lie on the EWCs due to their legal status and their numerous involvements
in negotiating agreements with companies. Besides EWCs, national trade
578 British Journal of Industrial Relations
© John Wiley & Sons Ltd/London School of Economics 2013.
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