The 2023 update of the OECD Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises on Responsible Business Conduct reaffirms the obligation of companies to respect the right of workers to freedom of association by adding an important elaboration on how this right is respected.
In the 2011 OECD Guidelines, Chapter V Employment and Industrial Relations, 1, reads:
a) Respect the right of workers employed by the multinational enterprise to establish or join trade unions and representative organisations of their own choosing.
The 2023 update now reads:
a) Respect the right of workers to establish or join trade unions and representative organisations of their own choosing, including by avoiding interfering with workers’ choice to establish or join a trade union or representative organisation of their own choosing.
This is significant because while most transnational companies claim to respect the right of workers to establish or join trade unions of their own choosing, they nonetheless allow their national and/or local management to interfere in the exercise of that right.
This interference covers a range of actions by management in the workplace that compel workers to rethink forming a union or joining a union. Management often claims that they were only giving “advice” to their employees or that employees came to them asking for advice. Management will also claim that they “only asked” employees about the union.
Giving “advice” or “only asking” is interference and violates the right of workers to freely choose. The freedom to choose to join or form a union implicitly means that the worker makes her decision free from any kind of interference or influence by management. Management must remain completely neutral and not directly or indirectly influence workers’ choices.
Trade Union Advisory Committee to the OECD (TUAC) provides some examples of actions or statements that “interfere with workers’ choice to establish or join a trade union”:
- Telling workers that they are a “team” or “family” and do not need representation or collective bargaining agreements.
- Disparaging the trade union seeking to represent workers for collective bargaining.
- Making any statement or taking any action that would lead a worker to think their work and income would change if they formed a trade union.
- Creating a perception that the OECD Guidelines do not apply to the enterprise, so workers would not gain anything seeking to implement them.
- Using judicial appeals to deny or delay workers’ choice of a representative.
- Relocating or sudden conversions of work to digital technology after workers demonstrate their choice for a representative.
Any one of these actions potentially constitutes a violation of the OECD Guidelines.
These and similar actions undermine the internationally recognized right to freedom of association and the right to organize under ILO Convention Nos 87 and 98. These are fundamental conventions to which all government and employers are bound. This means that the obligation of employers to abide by this and respect the right of workers to freedom of association and the right to organize is mandatory, not voluntary.