News
UNI Finance launching Global Alliances for Société Générale and BNP workers
The Société Générale Global Alliance and the BNP Paribas Global Alliance were officially launched in Marrakech on the 14th of April at the MENA meeting which included 56 participants from 16 countries.
New participants to the MENA meeting included union leaders from Slovenia, Cameroun, Romania, Guinea, Burkina Faso and Palestine in addition to the other participants from the MENA network (France, Italy, Spain, Morocco, Tunisia, Lebanon, Jordan, Algeria) The meeting included a review of the mapping country by country, the identification of key issues for the workers, the discussion about the coordination of the Alliance (see the Framework document attached which was adopted by the unions) and the preparation of roadmaps for the future.
Key issues included: income inequalities (between managers and others and as well as between men and women); stress and work life balance; lack of union rights and social dialogue in some of the countries (eg; Cameroun, Burkina and Algeria would need support to negotiate a collective agreement).
There was a consensus on the need to set up common standards and rights for all employees working for the same company through the Global Agreements, as well as the need to reinforce Corporate Social Responsibility at regional and national level. Silvia Romano (the EWC co-chair) presented the BNP Paribas European agreements on employment and equality which are seen as good examples to follow for Société Générale which is currently renegotiating its outdated EWC agreement. The Tunisian colleagues from UGTT presented their CSR approach at national level and a school project funded by the BNP union members. At Société Générale, the negotiation on the global agreement is on the right track and the next step will be to ask BNP to start the negotiation at global level therefore creating a race to the top for responsible finance and social dialogue.
The Global Alliances are planning to meet again in Tunisia early 2016 in solidarity with our Tunisian colleagues for their fight for democracy and freedom.
