Inditex executive chairman Pablo Isla and IndustriALL Global Union general secretary Valter Sanches recently inked an agreement at the International Labour Organisation (ILO) head office in Geneva to extend the ‘Global Framework Agreement’ signed between the two organisations in 2007. For this next phase, the parties have agreed to set up a Global Union Committee.
The committee will have worker representatives from each of the Inditex Group's key areas of production and share and foster best practices across the industry.Inditex executive chairman Pablo Isla and IndustriALL Global Union general secretary Valter Sanches recently inked an agreement at the International Labour Organisation head office in Geneva to extend the 'Global Framework Agreement' signed between the two organisations in 2007. For this next phase, the parties have agreed to set up a Global Union Committee.#
Inditex is the first fashion retailer in the world to set up a body of this kind, according to a press release from the company.
The committee will be populated by union representatives from Inditex's six main production clusters and representatives from the leading Spanish trade unions, Comisiones Obreras and UGT.
Inditex and the local and international unions have thus committed to continuing to reinforce the company's supply chain workers' labour rights, with a focus on the freedom of association and the right to collective bargaining.
Inditex and IndustriALL, which represents over 50 million workers affiliated with nearly 600 unions around the world, have been working together to promote and protect human rights since they entered into this pioneering collaboration agreement.
The signing ceremony was attended by the ILO's deputy director general for field operations and partnerships Moussa Oumarou. By renewing their agreement, Inditex and IndustriALL Global Union will continue to respect and foster labour rights in the clothing, textile and footwear industry in general and in the company's supply global chain, in particular.
One of the key aspects of the agreement is the establishment of joint training policies and programmes that involve the workers at factories and suppliers that Inditex works with in order to make progress on the promotion of management-employee dialogue and workplace equality, among other aspects.
Fibre2Fashion News Desk (DS)