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31 January, 2011
The second meeting of the Latin American Trade Union Network of Dutch multinational Akzo Nobel was held on from 7-9 December 2010 in São Paulo, Brazil. The meeting was jointly organized by the project called CUTMulti, CUT`s International Relations Secretariat, and ICEM’s Dutch trade union affiliate, FNV Bondgenoten.
The meeting was attended by trade union representatives from Brazil, the Netherlands, US, Mexico, Argentina, and Colombia, together with representatives from the Brazilian national labour centre CUT, ICEM, and Brazil’s Social Observatory Institute.
At the opening session, the general coordinator of ICEM affiliate CNQ/CUT – the National Workers Confederation of the Chemical Sector – Antenor Nakamura (Kazu) congratulated the initiative to expand the committee, and highlighted the importance of trade union networking in the chemicals sector.
Delegates put forward their expectations from the network. Marcel Tesselaar, representative of FNV Bondgenoten, the union representing headquarters workers of AkzoNobel, acknowledged that the company has different behaviours in the Netherlands from the rest of the world. “Through meetings like this, we can create a real social dialogue process,” he said.
James Carvin, a sub-district director of ICEM’s North American Affiliate, the United Steelworkers (USW), told the meeting that his union’s intention is to intensify the work with the network and promised to reproduce work done in Brazil in the US.
ICEM’s Kemal Özkan reported on the current situation of the chemical industry worldwide. A international labor standards and other tools for union action presentation was made by José Drummond, with emphasis on the OECD Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises, the ILO tripartite declaration for multinationals, UN Global Compact, Socio-Labor Declaration of Mercosur, ISO 26000, and various companies codes of conduct. Data on the AkzoNobel restructuring process was presented by the DIEESE.
The meeting also included country reports on existing situations at AkzoNobel plants. A plant visit to Mauá, discussions on communication of the network, its expansion and political coordination, and strengthening of the Latin American network were the major topics of the meeting programme.
The activities closed on 10 December with a social dialogue session with the participation of the company`s management for South America. Some eight managers attended, including human resource managers and union relations consultants hired specially to deal with the workers network. The social dialogue debates included a presentation of the company on strategic investments in China, a report of the network on the proposals put forward in this second Latin American meeting, international labor standards, the social dialogue process, organization at the workplace, corporate social responsibility, the company’s code of conduct, and a proposal on training and labour/union relations for the management of the company.