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1 August, 2011
Key activists of ICEM’s Dutch affiliate FNV Bondgenoten inside a leading global chemicals company, Akzo Nobel, were welcomed at the ICEM Secretariat on 22 July to reinforce and organise the new global network of workers.
Fons Welters, Chair of Akzo Nobel’s Central Works Council (CWC) and a member of the European Works Council (EWC), with Michael Dekker and Marcel Tesselaar, of the CWC and EWC also, are stepping up the activity of the global network with various tools, including a new quarterly newsletter for the network.
It is normally the case that the union representing workers in the company’s home country assumes responsibility for administering a global network of workers, and FNV Bondgenoten considers international networking within multinationals a priority. The network formed on meeting on 31 May-1 June 2010 and was FNV-Bondgenoten in Amsterdam. The union established the FNV Company Monitor some years ago as a tool for research on Dutch multinationals, and to build networks of unionists within them.
An ICEM Global Corporate Network is primarily a means of communication for those working for the same employer across the world, and for their trade unions, allowing them to cooperate and coordinate. Akzo Nobel employs 55,000 people in over 80 countries.