Multinational Corporations and Labour Rights

By Auret Van Heerden, Shelley Marshall, David Doorey, Julia Hawkins, Veronnica Nilsson

The International Centre for Trade Union Rights (ICTUR) asks whether multinational corporations can protect workers rights.

Are codes of conduct viable and are they worth the paper they are written on? Unions have been striking international framework agreements which seem to be more useful than codes. ICTUR brings together critics and supporters of this form of regulation and they look at issues like brand accountability and monitoring, corporate social responsibility statements and media attention as ways of maintaining standards. Eastern and Central Europe's recent re-entry into the world trade system has created many issues and problems for unions, so what can unions do in Bulgaria (the country studied) and outside to ensure decent standards. The OECD has developed guidelines for MNCs and a policy advisor from the OECD writes about how they have developed and been revised, and how they are used by unions and NGOs.

(International Union Rights; vol. 12, no 1, 2005)