News

ISS, one of the world’s leading providers of Facility Services, and UNI Global Union have entered into a new global agreement concerning labour and organising rights. The agreement is the most comprehensive and advanced of its kind.



The new agreement is the most advanced so far between a global company and UNI Global Union, and takes the mutual commitment to a new and higher level. The agreement aims at enabling all ISS employees worldwide to be able to exercise rights to union membership and collective bargaining. ISS will work with and support Unions to ensure that they get the best possible access to inform employees about union membership and to recruit those employees, who may wish to join a union. As part of the agreement ISS will annually donate 100,000 Euros to a jointly managed fund aimed at monitoring and raising standards in specific markets, where current conditions are inadequate.



“ISS fundamentally supports not only employees’ rights but also proper opportunities to organise. As one of the big employers in the world, with 440,000 people under the ISS flag and more joining everyday, we want to spearhead the raising of standards and better conditions in our industry globally. Whether our employees join a union or not is their free choice, but we want to make that choice available to them in the best possible way. That is essentially what this agreement is about,” said Group CEO Jørgen Lindegaard from ISS.



“It may sound pretty simple. But one thing is to have the rights, another is to make it happen in reality. Our employees are spread across tens of thousands of clients in 50 countries delivering our services everyday. For unions to get access to and meet these employees is not that easy. Hopefully, this agreement can help,” he added.



“ISS and UNI have set a new global rights benchmark,” said UNI’s General Secretary, Philip Jennings. “The concrete commitments of our agreement are a model for other employers to follow if they are serious about their social responsibility.”



Tom Balanoff, the President of UNI Property Services Global Union, added “This agreement represents a real opportunity for progress for the many thousands of workers who want to improve their lives through building unions. Now its time to translate the dreams made possible by this global agreement into a reality.”



For further information, please contact:



Group CEO Jørgen Lindegaard

ISS A/S

Tel. +45 38 17 00 00



Philip Jennings, General Secretary

UNI Global Union

Tel. +41 79 769 9061

+1 202 615 7647



About the ISS Group

The ISS Group is one of the world's leading Facility Services Groups, providing integrated service solutions based on the core business areas of Cleaning, Catering, Office Support, Property Service and Security. The ISS Group generated revenue of almost DKK 64 billion in 2007 and employs more than 440,000 people in 50 countries across Europe, Asia, USA, Latin America and Pacific.



About UNI Global Union

UNI is the global union for service workers which brings together 900 unions in over 150 countries, with 15 million members. Its members include 600,000 workers in the property services sector. UNI Property Services Global Union is working to improve the lives of the millions of workers who clean, secure and maintain buildings and grounds, as well as other private security workers.