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Freedom of Association and Collective Bargaining
WORKPLACE CODE PROVISION: "Employers will recognize and respect the right of employees to freedom of association and collective bargaining."
Click here to access FLA Benchmarks for this provision.
FLA Year Two IEM Findings - Freedom of Association and Collective Bargaining
* Please note that these findings represent the 1,595 incidences of separate noncompliance issues as found in 105 of the 110 factories subjected to IEMs in Year Two.
Click here for more about the way this data was collected.
Four percent of the total 1,595 IEM findings in Year Two related to Freedom of Association in spite of the fact that a high percentage of the IEMs were conducted in high-risk locations like China, Vietnam, Bangladesh, and Central America. As discussed in the featured issue of this year's report, Freedom of Association is an essential yet challenging Code provision to enforce due in part to the complex nature of this international standard, which accords workers the right to choose to affiliate or not to affiliate with a union. Because workers are given this choice, it is often difficult to identify and document occurrences of noncompliance. These complexities also make remediation challenging, yet nonetheless necessary.
Of the seventy reported instances of Freedom of Association noncompliance, 34 percent were classified as restrictions on workers' right to establish and join organizations of their own choosing without previous authorization. In many cases, workers' rights were limited by local laws. For example, all factories in China were found to be in noncompliance with this Standard. FLA monitors also found cases where employment practices discriminated against union-affiliated workers, and where management interfered in union activities or tried to prevent union development. Click here to access a breakdown of Year Two reported noncompliance issues tallied according to the Freedom of Association benchmarks.
Interestingly, 40 percent of the reported Freedom of Association issues did not fall under any of the current FLA benchmarks; they qualified as "Other." These findings highlighted the need for a more sophisticated understanding of this standard among monitors, as well as a need for enhanced investigation techniques and reporting tools. In order to increase monitors' capacity to investigate and report effectively on Freedom of Association, the FLA published the 2003 FLA Monitoring Alert - Freedom of Association. As mentioned earlier in this report, the FLA has also developed a new monitoring instrument, which will be used in Year Three monitoring visits. The instrument includes a new exercise that will help monitors map out labor-management relationships with a view to detecting freedom of association issues more effectively. The information collected through this exercise will also enable the FLA and companies to devise more effective remediation plans.
With regard to remediation of Freedom of Association noncompliance in Year Two, the FLA encouraged companies to provide education and training to workers and managers in order to increase their awareness of this standard. In several cases, companies were urged to develop hiring and firing protocols, and to develop systems for consultation and negotiation with workers. However, the FLA also underscored that companies should not engage in actions that could be construed as intervention in workers' organizational activities, since intervention in organizing represents a different kind of infringement on freedom of association. The FLA continues to work to improve approaches to remediate key Freedom of Association issues through collaborative projects, most notably the Central America project and monitor trainings.
For more information about Freedom of Association and the countries where adherence to this provision is particularly challenging, see the Year Two Feature Issue: Freedom of Association.
Please click here to visit the tracking charts to review how various companies have worked to remediate these and other issues.
Link to:
FLA BENCHMARKS: FREEDOM OF ASSOCIATION AND COLLECTIVE BARGAINING
A. WORKPLACE CODE PROVISION: Employers will recognize and respect the right of employees to freedom of association and collective bargaining.
B. Benchmarks
- Workers will have the right to establish and, subject only to the rules of the organization concerned, to join organizations of their own choosing without previous authorization. The right to freedom of association begins at the time that a worker seeks employment, and continues through the course of employment.
- The employer will not interfere, to the detriment of worker's organizations, with government registration requirements regarding the formation of workers' organizations.
- The employer will not dismiss, discipline, or otherwise coerce or threaten workers seeking to form, join or participate in workers' organizations.
- The employer will not interfere with workers' exercise of the right to freedom of association through intimidation, including illegal or unreasonable searches.
- The employer will not use force, or the presence of police or military, to intimidate workers, or to prevent peaceful organizing or assembly.
- The employer will not interfere with the right to freedom of association by controlling workers' organizations or favoring one workers' organization over another.
- The employer will not discriminate against workers who seek to exercise their right to organize and bargain collectively.
- In cases where a single union represents workers, the employer will not interfere in any way in workers' ability to form other organizations that represent workers.
- Employers will comply with all national and local laws and regulations concerning collective bargaining and free association. Where conflicts are known to exist, employers will use the standard that provides the greatest protection for workers.
- The employer will not shift production or close a factory for the direct purpose of retaliating against workers who have formed or are attempting to form a union.
- Workers' organizations have the right to elect their representatives and conduct their activities without employer interference.
- The employer will not dismiss, discipline, or otherwise coerce or threaten workers because of their exercise of the right to freedom of association. When union officers are dismissed, demoted or otherwise suffer a loss of rights at work, a monitor should look with special attention at the possibility of anti-union discrimination.
- Employers will negotiate in good faith with any union that has been recognized, by law or agreement between the employer and that union, as a bargaining agent for some or all of its employees.
- Employers and employees will honor in good faith, for the term of the agreement. the terms of any collective bargaining agreement they sign. Employees shall be able to raise issues regarding CBA compliance by the employer without retaliation
- In any case where the industrial relations system specifies certain unions as the exclusive bargaining agent, employers will not be required to engage in collective bargaining with other worker groups or organizations on matters covered by the collective agreement.
- Trade unions not recognized as bargaining agent of some or all of the workers in a facility should have the means for defending the occupational interests of their members, including making representations on their behalf and representing them in cases of individual grievances, within limits established by applicable law. Workers' representatives should have the facilities necessary for the proper exercise of their functions, including access to workplaces
- Employers will not use blacklists of any kind.
- Employers shall not offer or use severance pay (or " indemnicization" in Latin America) as a means of restricting union formation or union operations.
| Freedom of Association Benchmarks |
Number of Noncompliance Issues |
Percent of Total |
| Right to Freely Associate |
24 |
34% |
| Employer Interference in registration |
2 |
3 % |
| Unfair dismissal |
1 |
1 % |
| Employer interference/ intimidation |
0 |
0 % |
| Employer interference/ external forces |
0 |
0 % |
| Employer control/ favoritism |
1 |
1 % |
| Discrimination |
0 |
0 % |
| Employer interference/ formation of alternative organizations |
0 |
0 % |
| Compliance to local collective bargaining laws |
2 |
3 % |
| Retaliation against Union Formation |
0 |
0 % |
| Employer Interference/Elections |
6 |
9 % |
| Union Harassment |
0 |
0 % |
| Union Negotiation |
0 |
0 % |
| Victimization |
3 |
4 % |
| Union as the Bargaining Agent |
0 |
0 % |
| Access to Unions |
3 |
4 % |
| Blacklisting |
0 |
0 % |
| Severance |
0 |
0 % |
| Freedom of Assoc. & Collective Bargain. Other |
28 |
40 % |
| Total |
70 |
100 % |
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