Rémi Bourguignon

Rémi Bourguignon, Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne
Pierre Garaudel, Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne

This article analyses the practice of Global Framework Agreement (GFA) in transnational companies (TNCs) through the perspective of the «GFA strategies» carried out by Global Union Federation (GUFs). Using the meta-organization theoretical framework we conceptualize GUFs as Meta-Organizations (MO) and develop the notions of meta-organizational landscape and meta-organizational activities of GUFs in order to give a new theoretical account of the specific position of GUFs in the international industrial relations arena. The theory of MO has been developed following the seminal contributions of Ahrne and Brunsson (2005, 2008) who proposed the concept of MO to designate organizations that have other organizations as members. Researchers have shown that MOs present specific characteristics compared to individual-based organizations : for example, MOs tend to be much more dependent to their singular members and their decision-making process is based more on consensus than hierarchy. Moreover, meta-organization and its members organizations typically compete for identity, autonomy, and authority. This analytical framework has been applied to different kinds of MOs such as trade associations and a great variety of international organizations (Kerwer, 2013; Malcourant, Vas and Zintz, 2015, Ahrne, Brunsson, and Kerwer, 2016; Brankovic, 2018). However, to our knowledge, no MOs related to the industrial relation field has yet been studied with MO theoretical lenses. In this paper we focus on GUFs because they present specific features typical of MOs. At the macro-level, we show how GUFS are engaged in many types of interactions (membership, cooperation, negotiation) with other MOs (the Federation of International Employers -FedEE-, the International Trade Union Confederation -ITUC-, the International Labor Organizations -ILO-, the European Trade Union Confederation -ETUC-, etc.) that often have other MOs as members (for example, 10 European Trade Unions federations are members of the ETUC). More specifically, we interpret in terms of meta-organizational functions the emergent division of labour between the ICFTU, on the one hand, and the GUFs, on the other (Fairbrother and Hammer, 2005). While strengthening cooperation and coordination among members and acting as a collective representative of its members in relation with external stakeholders (policy-makers, media, Non Profit Organizations, etc.) have been identified as two main functions of MOs, these two MO functions tend to be dissociated in the new international industrial relation landscape: ICFTU is more focused on traditional lobbying at international institutions when GUFs are giving more attention to union organizing and labour-management relations. In referencing TNCs and their global production networks, the IFA strategy has thus defined a new focus of activity for the GUFs and their affiliates (Helfen and Fichter, 2011). At the micro level, this leads us to highlight the specific mode of action of GUFs whithin TNCs as meta-organizational external interlocutors acting in support of TNCs internal actors. This view is in line with the argument of Ford and McGillan (2015) according to which GUFs are distinct from national and local unions in that they have an identifiable mandate to think, act and represent workers on a transnational basis but at the same time, however – since the locus of union resources, authority structures and mobilization remains local and national – their capacity to effect change and implement their strategic goals is still largely dependent on their ability to identify effective union partners at local and national scales and to play a facilitation and coordination role rather than dictating or directing the implementation of strategy from ‘above’. While they aim to support the cooperation between TNCs internal actors across different countries they may also be perceived as « competitors » or at least as less legitimate actors than internal actors when it comes to negotiate with the management’s side. This may lead to various institutional arrangements within TNCs, especially as industrial relations are much less embedded in an institutional and legal framework at the international level than they are at the national level and even at the European level. This diversity of situations may result from the different GFA strategies of GUFs but also from firm-specific factors related to the history of unions-management relationships and from home-country institutional effects. Our empirical investigation, based on the qualitative analysis of 10 French multinational companies, allows us to identify tree ideal-typical situations: 1) GFAs with a predominant role of an internal union network, known as “Alliance”, promoted and coordinated by one singular GUF acting in the skills and services sector, the UNI Global Union; 2) GFAs with a predominant role of the European or group work council in interaction with TNCs national trade unions, especially the TNCs home-country ones; 3) GFAs negotiated and implemented mainly within the framework of a bilateral relation between the signatory GUF and the management side. Following our analysis of the case-studies corresponding to these three ideal-types, we suggest that the “UNI Alliance” configuration offers the advantage of balancing different constraints GUFs have to overcome in order to successfully promote and develop a GFA policy within TNCs. First, the Alliance framework allows to uphold the status of GUFs as the leading interlocutor of the employees’ side at the global level while also explicitly acknowledge an active and important role to national unions, therefore mitigating the risk of some competitive tensions between the GUFs and the TNCs internal organizations. At the same time, by facilitating the involvement and coordination of national unions throughout the TNCs’ global network, the Alliance framework helps to ensure a better effectivity of the GFA. This contrasts with the situation generally observed in the “GUF-management head-to-head” configuration where the GUF is in a lesser position to ensure the effective implementation of the agreement, especially because of the lower involvement of national unions and the lack of human and financial resources at the GUF’s disposal

References

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