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NEWSLETTER 14, JULY 2001
Legal working group kicking off!
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What does the European Parliament's "Howitt Resolution",
the Belgian initiative for a social label, a social clause in
a free trade agreement and the OECD (Organization for Economic
Cooperation and Development) Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises
have in common? All, in one way or another, try to control the
behavior of companies when operating abroad.
While most of these initiatives are voluntary, the CCC decided
to start a working group to look into these developments and,
importantly, ways to make companies legally responsible for respecting
labor rights when operating abroad. This means actions, public
campaigns, and actions directed at governments and international
institutions. In the short term, the legal working group plans
to compile information on the different kinds of relevant existing
legislation. This will result in a paper which will be distributed
widely and put on the CCC website. Secondly, the group plans to
focus some attention on the OECD guidelines. Although these guidelines
are very weak it is hard to ignore them, because whenever there's
an attempt to push for legislation that would hold companies accountable
for labor conditions almost every government refers to the OECD
guidelines and procedures. Therefore, the CCC wants to explore
possibilities for highlighting the failure of the OECD guidelines,
to demonstrate that functioning as a mechanism to ensure corporate
compliance with good labor standards is simply beyond the scope
of the current guidelines. In a lot of countries governments have
installed a National Contact Point, which is an institution where
NGOs can file complaints about violations of the (voluntary) OECD
guidelines. The CCC is interested in presenting cases to several
National Contact Points. The expectation is that the results of
the complaints will highlight the weaknesses of the OECD guidelines.
When the guidelines are reviewed in three to four years time,
these cases can be used as evidence of the failure of the guidelines
to regulate multinationals and protect workers rights.
There has been a lot of study of the possibilities of suing a
company that violates labor standards abroad. Since the Permanent
People's Tribunal in Brussels in 1998 (see our website: http://www.cleanclothes.org/publications/julyforumreport.htm)
and the conference in Warwick on controlling corporate wrongdoings
in 2000 ( also on the website: http://www.cleanclothes.org/publications/corp-1.htm)
there has been more and more debate on whether or not it is possible
to develop a court case in a European country where the company
is headquartered. However, what has been lacking is a process
of consultation with organizations in production countries. Before
the CCC can pursue such a strategy network members in Europe and
in production countries need to thoroughly consult with each other
to clarify what the advantages and disadvantages of such a strategy
are and if such lawsuits are in line with what workers want. The
repercussions of losing a case (for workers and the campaign)
also have to be assessed.
So far, more then 20 people from 11 countries have joined the
CCC's legal working group. If you are interested in legal cases
and want to work with this group, please contact the CCC Secretariat
in Amsterdam.
