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Jean-Paul Bouchet	Philip Bowyer

Moves to protect corporate whistle blowers and to encourage the ethical management of offshore outsourcing were announced at UNI’s Professional and Managerial Staff world conference in Melbourne, Australia.

Both are to be incorporated into UNI codes that underline the responsibilities of managerial staff and outline a campaign for wider recognition.

An international right to protect whistleblowers is to be built into an expanded UNI Code of professional, social and ethical responsibility for P&MS members.

“It’s a vital process and the protection of whistleblowers is a very important issue - they are often professional and managerial staff,” Jean-Paul Bouchet of CFDT Cadres, France told the 120 delegates.

The UNI Code is being updated in the post-Enron era to cover P&MS who increasingly work for multinational organisations that have spawned a plethora of codes of conduct in recent years (usually without wide consultation or independent verification).

The Code defines standards that it is reasonable to expect members to comply with when carrying out their duties - and giving them guaranteed rights to make their voice heard within an organisation, to intervene over issues like health and safety and to promote the practices of responsible management.

At the moment whistle blowers can be sidelined or even fired for alerting companies to wrong doings. Not only do P&MS unions want the right to whistle blow specifically spelled out and reports dealt with confidentially and with internal protection, they also want legal protection.

In the final conference session delegates pledged support for a global convention to protect whistleblowers.

One key new clause also calls for the recognition of international standards including the right of professional and managerial staff to join unions and to bargain collectively.

“What is lacking is the negotiation of rules,” said Jean-Paul. “We cannot have decent work without rights.”

Japan Registers	Gerhard Rohde

UNI’s Gerhard Rohde presented the Offshoring Code for managers, which also puts the emphasis on ethical behaviour by companies and their managers.

“Ethical offshoring must pursue the goal of ensuring the greatest possible protection and good working conditions for employees inside and outside national boundaries,” said Gerhard. “What is needed - even in the case of offshoring - is sustainable company development. This includes proper treatment of employees on both sides.”

The Offshoring Code aims to provide a common standard to guide the actions of responsible managers.

A key point in the Code is the earliest possible involvement of staff (and their unions) in offshoring discussions and personnel policies that protect employment conditions, avoid compulsory redundancies and ensure ILO labour standards apply in job-receiving countries.

“In offshoring, high quality customer service is a top priority - cost cuts at the expense of customers must be avoided,” says the Code.

In a discussion document presented to the P&MS world conference Philip 0’Rawe - an IT manager with BT and a union activist with Connect UK – warns “offshoring is often rushed and poorly planned”. He said that managers’ responsibility is “to ensure that cost advantages are not obtained through extreme pressure and exploitation”.

Connect has a number of offshoring agreements with UK-based multinationals who have outsourced work to India – and the union carries out regular visits to India to ensure that the agreement is being operated properly.

“We believe this Code provides reasonable principles for managers that can be applied,” said Gerhard.



In his report on UNI’s campaign to drive private equity out of the shadows, UNI Deputy General Secretary Philip Bowyer warned of the conflict of interest at the very top of companies involved in PE-financed management buyouts when giving advice to shareholders.

PE raises ethical issues, he told the conference.

Top table: Maria Teresa Seabra, Portugal; Leslie Manasseh, UK; Jean-Paul Bouchet, France