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In his most recent report to the UN General Assembly, John Ruggie, the United Nations' Special Representative on human rights and transnational corporations, says that global agreements are a way for multinationals to to promote human rights in their operations.



The Special Representative's April 2010 report to the United Nations General Assembly provides guidance to all social actors as to how to advance human rights performance in business. States are encouraged to promote rights-respecting cultures through legal and policy mechanisms while business is encouraged to ensure legal compliance and to adopt due diligence procedures for best-practice regarding human rights performance.



"Industry-based and multi-stakeholder initiatives can enable companies to increase the reach and reduce the costs of grievance mechanisms. Global framework agreements may achieve the same for union federations and transnational companies," Ruggie says in the report.



Ruggie was appointed in 2005 to propose measures to strengthen the human rights performance of the business sector worldwide. By 2008, Ruggie had identified systematic "patterns of corporate-related human rights abuse" which were neglected by the "governance gaps" in the global economy. He advised that, in order to resolve these issues, "all social actors - States, businesses and civil society - must learn to do many things differently". The 2008 report proposed the "protect, respect and remedy" framework, which acknowledges the interdependent but distinct roles of the State, business and civil society in promoting human rights. The framework imposes on the State a duty to protect people's human rights, on business a responsibility to respect human rights and civil society is charged with seeking remedies where human rights are breached.



Ruggie and his team of advisers have conducted further research, including multi-stakeholder dialogue and other consultative mechanisms and practical experiments to test the "protect, respect and remedy" framework. The team is also liaising with the OECD, the UN Global Compact, the International Finance Corporation, the European Commission, nation states and others to develop its recommendations.



Ruggie recommends that global agreements between global trade unions and multinational employers can contribute to higher standards of performance in relation to human rights, as well as providing a useful mechanism for addressing grievances. This endorsement from the UN's Special Representative follows a similar endorsements from the Global Compact which states that, "these agreements benefit both companies and employees by providing a common platform for addressing the Global Compact labour principles." The use of global agreements has also been recommended and encouraged in a 2009 report from the Norwegian government, whose powerful pension fund invests in many of the world's largest companies.



UNI has signed 35 global agreements with multinational companies and is aiming to sign a further 15 agreements before our World Congress in Nagasaki this November. These agreements provide a basis for access to organise workers into trade unions, for dialogue with employers on labour and other issues and for building worker power around the world.