UN’s Global Compact Needs Enforcement Mechanism, Says ICEM

The 20-million-member ICEM has vowed to strengthen the UN’s Global Compact by pushing for integrity measures that would make the Compact more credible for corporations signing onto the principles of social responsibility. A week after a watershed Leaders Summit in New York City on UN General Security Kofi Annan’s four-year-old initiative, General Secretary Fred Higgs issued a summary report on the Compact and laid out global labour’s future involvement.

Higgs was one of four members of the Global Compact’s 17-member Advisory Committee charged with drafting integrity measures leading into the June 24 Leaders Summit.

“In developing these procedures,” wrote Higgs, “it became clear there would be a need to for some ultimate sanction if all other efforts in getting a company to comply failed.” That sanction, he added, “would be to de-list the company from the Global Compact register.”

Higgs also identified another hurdle to clear to make the Compact work. “At the same time as these integrity measures were being developed, other logistical problems regarding management of the Global Compact initiatives were being realized. The most significant of these is the inadequate administrative resources available to manage an initiative involving now over 1,500 companies.”

Higgs reiterated in the report what he said during a speech at the opening of the summit: “A prerequisite for the ongoing support of the global unions for this initiative was that any reconstituted structure for taking the Compact forward would need to include integrity measures and an ultimate sanction for those companies that clearly have no intention of applying the ten principles for which they had signed up to.”

Higgs is one of two labour leaders on the Advisory Committee, and has been labour’s voice on the Compact. Kofi Annan announced at the close of the Leaders Summit that a small group would examine the current structure and governance of the Global Compact over the next 12 months.

The Global Compact’s principles are now voluntary and encompass areas of human rights, labour standards and the environment. The labour standards include freedom of association, right to collective bargaining, abolition of forced, compulsory and child labour, and elimination of employment and job discrimination. At the summit, the tenth principle was added, an anti-corruption measure. The ICEM welcomed the addition and calls it “a necessary standard that by its very nature calls for review through workable integrity measures.”

The ICEM is the dominant trade union federation in mining, energy and process industries sectors with over 400 affiliates in 125 countries.

For a report by Fred Higgs on the UN Global Compact Summit, click here.