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New York. UNI Global Union General Secretary Philip Jennings spoke at the UN Global Compact Leaders Summit in New York to mark the Global Compact’s 10th anniversary.

Jennings told business, government and civil society leaders at the UN Global Compact Leaders Summit that engagement with trade unions is part of the sustainability solution that corporate executives are looking for. He said that to take the principles in the compact and put them into practice, multinational companies should sign Global Agreements with the Global Unions to ensure basic workers’ rights and union rights across all of the company’s operations around the world.



A study from the Global Compact asked CEO’s what was important to them. The vast majority said that sustainability was a key issue. UNI believes that sustainability includes trade union and workers’ rights.



“The message from you is powerful and clear. If you’ve got a 93 percent majority saying sustainability is important that’s a workable majority,” Jennings said, adding that the global trade union movement wants to work with corporations to make their labour practices more sustainable.



“We’re ready to engage, we want to be part of the solution,” he said.



UNI believes that Global Agreements are a way for corporations and workers and their unions to engage in ways that can be mutually beneficial.



“Business does not always see it the same way unions do,” Jennings said. “But I think what we’re seeing gives encouragement to the reframing of the conversation that needs to take place on different terms. You often see it as ‘freedom of association good for me, freedom of association bad for you.’ The work at the compact helps us reframe it.”



Jennings was on a panel with Donald MacDonald, Chair, Principles for Responsible Investment; Paul Polman, Chief Executive Officer, Unilever; Mary Robinson, President, Realizing Rights: The Ethical Globalization Initiative; and Carolyn Woo, Dean, Mendoza College of Business, University of Notre Dame. Moderator, Charles O. Holliday, Jr., Chairman of Bank of America, also warmed to Jennings message.



Jennings said the United States needs to change its approach to business and get out of the trenches fighting unions.



UNI believes that national governments and international institutions must also be part of the solution to solve the world’s economic crisis and to ensure global labour standards as laid out by the International Labour Organisation (ILO). Only by following those ILO principles will corporations be able to honestly say that they are socially responsible. With the ILO sitting at the table at the G20, the organisation will keep up the fight for decent work and social justice.



Jennings said that often company annual reports or corporate social responsibility reports trumpet pages and pages of good intentions that are not part of a company’s reality. Global agreements help make those ideas a reality by giving a mechanism to enforce the ideas.



He got a laugh when a gong, meant to signal his speaking time was up, seemed to underscore his point and indicate the timekeeper was on his side.



Jennings got an enthusiastic response from the crowd by getting the gong to sound for what is most important for the world’s workers.



“Bang the cymbal for a global agreement, bang a cymbal for decent work, that we're in this together and that we're going to take the global compact to next level,” he said.



The timekeeper was more than happy to oblige.



The summit session with Philip Jennings will be available on the UN website at:

http://www.un.org/webcast/globalcompact/leaderssummit2010/ondemand.asp?mediaID=pl100624am1-eng