Okay, so, the convention of the Service Employees International Union has kicked off. I’ll be posting now and again–when I’m not drinking rum–when there is something interesting to say (and that is always open to interpretation).

    For the time being, here is the Justice For All document that frames the general theme of the convention.

    Morning: The usual stuff…touching tribute to members who passed away…introductions…credentials committee. I missed the governor of Puerto Rico but I’m going out on a limb here to say that that was not much to hear.

    The only interesting part came with a formal signing of a global agreement with ISS, a big global cleaning company. Here at the convention, there was a ceremonial signing of the deal with union reps from a number of countries. The deal covers 50 countries. Here is the official release:

Copenhagen, 2 June 2008 – ISS, one of the world’s leading providers of Facility Services, and UNI Global Union has entered into a new global agreement concerning labour and organising rights.

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.”

    Why is this interesting? There’s been a lot of debate about how to figure out globalization–how do you build a labor movement that crosses borders since workers and capital are moving across borders so quickly.