Transnational Company Agreements

309 Pages·2015·1.86 MB·English

by  Antonello Claps

Employment, Social Aairs and Inclusion
Agreement Number
VS/2013/0350
The Transnational company agreements
EURACTA2
EXPERIENCES AND PROSPECTS
FINAL REPORT
With the financial support of the European Union.

Disclaimer. The sole responsibility for this publication lies with the authors and the European
Commission is not responsible for any use that maybe made of the information contained here.

27 January 2015
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EURACTA 2

Project Coordination

Associazione Bruno Trentin (ABT)
Italy
www.ires.it
Salvo Leonardi

Partners

Fundacion 1° de Mayo
Spain
www.1mayo.ccoo.es
Fernando Rocha

IRES-
France
www.ires-fr.org
Udo Rehfeldt

ASTREES
France
www.astrees.org
Christophe Teissier and Sebastian Schulze-Marmeling

Technical University of Munich
Germany
www.tum.de
Michael Whittall

The University of Manchester
The United Kingdom
www.mbs.ac.uk
Miguel Martinez Lucio and Stephen Mustchin

NSZZ Solidarnosc
Poland
www.solidarnosc.org.pl
Slawomir Adamczyk and Barbara Surdykowska

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ISTUR-CITUB
Bulgaria
http://www.knsb-bg.org/
Ekaterina Ribarova, Tatyana Mihailova, Snezhana Dimitrova

IRES Emilia Romagna--
Italy
www.ireser.it
Volker Telljohann

Sindnova--
Italy
www.sindnova.eu
Claudio Stanzani and Michela Cirioni

With the collaboration of Giorgio Verrecchia

And the external support of
European Trade Unions Confederation (ETUC)
Confederazione Generale Italiana del Lavoro (CGIL)
PROJECT COORDINATOR
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Contents

Premise……………………………………………………………………………...…..pag. 7

- Globalisation and Labour Regulation: Towards Transnational
Collective Agreements and Beyond
(Miguel Martinez Lucio, Stephen Mustchin and Michael Whittall)................ pag. 11

- Transnational Company Agreements: a map (Udo Rehfeldt)..........................pag. 27

- Transnational Company Agreements: the empirical findings of the
EURACTA 2 project (Salvo Leonardi)............................................................pag. 40

Case studies

- Volkswagen Transnational Company Agreements.
The meaning of international corporate regulation at work
(Michael Whitthall, Miguel M. Lucio, Stephen Mustchin, Fernando Rocha,
Volker Telljohann)……………………………………………………….…….pag. 71

- The Thales agreements on anticipation and professional development:
How to transform managerial prerogatives into a subject of social dialogue
(Udo Rehfeldt and Salvo Leonardi)………………………..………………….pag. 118

- Schneider Electric: illusory implementation of innovative EFA?
(Slawomir Adamczyk and Barbara Surdykowska)...........................................pag. 147

- The TCAs at the SKF: Implementation and impact on the Bulgarian
subsidiary (Tatyana Mihailova, Ekaterina Ribarova, Snezhana Dimitrova).....pag. 167

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- The Transnational Company Agreements at Santander Group:
anything else than a symbolic value?
(Fernando Rocha and Luis de la Fuente; Stephen Mustchin and
Miguel Martínez,, Lucio; Slawomir Adamczyk and Barbara
Surdykowska)............................................................................ .......................pag. 180

- TCAs in Unicredit (Giorgio Verrecchia, Micheal Whitthall,
Michela Cirioni)...............................................................................................pag. 207

- BNP Paribas and the European Agreement on Employment Policies.
The negotiation of an agreement or the agreement to negotiate?
(Sebastian Schulze-Mermeling and Christophe Teissier)……………...…..…pag. 235

Other theoretical analysis

- The Unbearable Lightness of TCAs. Is an EU legal framework
the right choice to approach this reality? (Andrea Gana)………….………….pag. 254

- The relationship between European Trade Union Federations and
European Works Councils, with a focus on their role as
bargaining agents (Giulia Frosecchi).............................................................pag. 27

- Global and European Corporate Framework Agreements:
counterpoint and legal elements for discussion (Wilfredo Sanguinetti)..........pag. 287

- European Framework Agreements – the undervalued chance
for the European trade unions to get out of the trap of globalization
(Slawomir Adamczyk and Barbara Surdykowska)..........................................pag.293

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Premise

Transnational company agreements (TCAs) have emerged as an important development in
the increasingly globalized economy. It is a means by which partners may respond jointly to
key social and economic changes in the global market facing their firms.
Due to the absence of any systematic transnational legal regulation, transnational negotiations
are left to the spontaneous rules developed by actors involved in such discussions. This
complex reality requires a careful analysis of the challenges and drawbacks facing trade
unions and management.
In order to address some of these issues, the project “European Action on TCAs”
(EURACTA 2) has been promoted and coordinated by the Italian institute the Associazione
Bruno Trentin (ABT) involving a high profile network of economic and social research
institutes, trade unions and universities from seven different European countries.
The following report is the final outcome of this European project - EURACTA 2. The
research and policy activity has been realized thanks to the financial support of the European
Commission which lasted throughout the year 2014.
The general objectives of the project were:
1) To improve the understanding of TCAs through a systematic exchange of experiences and
expertise among European social partners
2) To execute an in-depth, empirical study of TCAs, specifically in relation to their
negotiation, emergent issues, and implementation and impact in the different local contexts
and on national industrial relations in general.
On this occasion we wanted to investigate how the TCAs fared in practice: to understand in
detail the negotiating procedures; to capture the trade unions’ approach to managing
corporate-based processes in relation to TNCs; to understand the role of TCAs in
internationalization of industrial relations; to identify the opportunities and also the problems
from the viewpoints and evaluations of the different actors who were involved.
After choosing two sectors (the metal sector and finance and banking) and then selecting
seven high profile TNCs with one or more TCAs, in depth fieldwork was executed by our
international team.
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In the following report we are going to present the outcomes and findings of our study. We
will begin with a couple of introductory chapters focusing on the general scenario and
debates in relation to transnational bargaining: the challenges of globalization, the role of
international core labour standards, the different perspectives regarding the
internationalization of the industrial relations, the nature of the new actors and procedures of
the transnational collective bargaining, and the nature of the entity of such a new level of
social dialogue.
After this first section, we present the empirical findings of the survey, with a horizontal
comparison of the different findings and issues emerging from the fieldwork. In particular,
we present a detailed discussion so that we can better understand, in practice and in terms of
the content, how a TCA evolves throughout all its different phases. We therefore investigated
who was the initiator of the TCA (in terms of motivations and aims), the nature of the
negotiation procedure, the role of the signatory agents, the content of the agreements, the
implementation process - in the home country of the TNC and in its subsidiaries- and the
impact on the different national industrial relations systems.
After such an overview, we present the details and issues in each single case study. They
concern seven different Transnational Corporations and are the outcome of our international
collective work. Every single case study is - in fact - the sum of the work done: work which
has been both jointly and separately by the members of the project team in their national and
local contexts. The case studies are presented according to a common grid of the content so
we can compare and learn from this body of work. They start with a profile of the companies
either at the level of Transnational Corporate and, when relevant, at the level of its different
national subsidiaries. Subsequently, the negotiation parties and processes, including the
agreements’ contents, are discussed in some detail. Moreover, they provide an overview of
the implementation practices and their impact in terms of the different local environments.
They normally include interesting quotations and developments collated from the interviews.
Each case also consists of concluding remarks and general impressions.
Towards the end, we discuss the added value of these TCAs, taking in consideration the
evaluations we gathered during our numerous interviews with the social partners of the seven
countries concerned.
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Lastly, in a third section of the report, we decided to include further contributions from
colleagues and friends we had met during the international events – the two workshops
(Madrid and Brussels) and the final conference (Rome) – which were organized as key points
of reflection our one-year programme of research and exchanges. These contributions will
focus in more theoretical terms on some of the key issues concerning the subject of TCAs.
Some of these issues had already been part of our own initial questions and specific concerns,
especially with the previous project EUROACTA which was realized in 2011-12 under the
same co-ordinating team (at that time the now ABT was still IRES) and a similar network of
partners. In this section we refer to the legal status of these agreements, the relationship
between the European Trade Union Federations and European Works Councils, and the
nature of the procedures for more and better TCAs in the future.
We will examine the manner and ways in which transnational texts are generally concluded
and their concrete impact and effectiveness. In particular, we will highlight some crucial
points related to the implementation process. The need to ensure the local actors’
involvement, and thus avoiding that the TCAs are ignored or misunderstood at the local level,
represents the main issue related to this aspect.
Through this analysis we will argue that even in absence of any systematic legal regulations,
TCAs have become an increasing reality (albeit regulated by its own rules) which, even with
evident and critical challenges and barriers to their development, are able to ensure a positive
and effective relations and dialogue between social partners.
The observed effectiveness of numerous TCAs concluded does not mean that any EU legal
framework is not necessary. Indeed, some greater regulation and intervention at the European
level seems the best way for allowing TCAs to play the greater role that they potentially
could play in the current economic context.
Finally, ee hope that our study can offer a detailed qualitative assessment of TCAs
concerning the initiating processes, the negotiating dynamics, the role of signatory parties and
their interaction, the question of their contents, the manner of the implementation process,
their eventual effectiveness and actual impact, and the way social partners evaluate their
usefulness and added value.

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Aknowledgments
We would like to thank, for their kind availability and collaboration during our events and
discussion, Ignacio Arenas, Ramón Baeza, Isabelle Barthes, Flavio Benites, Mimmo Carrieri,
Marco Cilento, Gabriel Di Letizia, Fausto Durante, Giorgia Frosecchi, Andrea Gana, Fausta
Guarriello, Juan Gorostide, Aline Hoffmann, Romuald Jagodzinski, Peter König, Marina
Monaco, Rita Moreno, Torsten Müller, Wilfredo Sanguineti, Isabelle Schömann, Silvana
Sciarra, Giorgio Verrecchia, Luca Visentini, Nina Zach.
Furthermore, all the stakeholders who patientelly accepted to be interviewed during our
surrvey.

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