Trade union approaches
Despite instinctive suspicions, CSR has been better than expected for trades unions in Northern Ireland.
Trades unions have historically been suspicious of CSR, often categorising the seemingly altruistic, consumer- and employee-friendly actions as by-products of de-regulation and brand image management.
“Instead of firm legislation and inspection,” a 2006 ICTU guide to CSR stated, “aimed at keeping the behaviour of corporations within acceptable boundaries, CSR developed.” Some see CSR as privatisation “promoted by governments seeking low-cost maintenance solutions themselves by hiving off inspection and enforcement” to NGOs and the private sector.
Yet the same document concluded that it was not something trade unionists could turn away from.
For Assistant General Secretary Peter Bunting, CSR must not mean businesses conjoining with others “to attack the legal rights which workers have already won.” Its value lies in employers (particularly larger ones) providing “training, mentoring, upskilling and employing long-term unemployed and those from the margins,” and in providing educational philanthropy. While there is merit in providing finance to universities, philanthropy must tackle “the level of literacy and numeracy difficulties that we have on the island.” This is to give people self-respect and build social cohesion.
An example of CSR “working very well” in Northern Ireland is the programmes delivered through the union learning fund. Established in 1998, it aims to provide skills needs in workplaces. Unionlearn, a learning and skills organisation of the TUC, manages and administers the fund. DEL currently finances 11 projects through £289,000 in funding this year. After needs analysis is conducted, employer and employees reach agreement on providing upskilling.
“It’s a contract between government funding, the employer’s contribution and the trade union’s contribution,” Bunting explains. Low skilled workers are benefiting, learning IT skills for example.
Where unionlearn has been involved, there has been “huge buy-in from the workforce”, according to Bunting. “Morale increases. I think productivity will increase from that,” he explains, and “you’ll also see that it’s easier for them [employers] then to have job retention.”
“The employer who has the low skilled workforce is far more into that sort of CSR than the employer who doesn’t,” he surmises. Though employment training and upskilling has traditionally been the role of the education system, Bunting believes the business community now has a role.
Whilst Bunting accepts that union feedback from members on CSR is limited by it coming from organised workplaces, CSR can involve “a lot of lip service” from employers. For this reason the Danish Government’s approach would be insufficient if replicated here. Since 2009, the largest companies, listed companies, investors and certain state-owned companies in Denmark must include CSR policies and actions in annual reports. If a business covered by the requirement has no policy, this must be stated in the report.
“Some people could come out and say: ‘Well, legally I’m obliged to say how much I’m doing for this that and the other,’ and you know, really, what is the outcome?” Bunting asks. “For me it’s about outcomes and what better outcome than a contribution to upskilling those who have fallen out of the education net?”
Report sponsored by George Best Belfast City Airport
