La convention collective : un instrument de responsabilité sociale des entreprises
Corporate social responsibility (CSR) is a concept referring to voluntarism, without unique definition, aiming to take into account interests of various company stakeholders. The main common characteristic is to institute principles that go beyond what the law establishes. In order for CSR to take place, several tools have been used, like the code of conduct which is the most widely used. As for one of the multiple corporate stakeholders, the workers don’t seem to be invited to participate in corporate decisions related to CSR, despite the major interests that they and the workers’ union might have in the company. Our research looks at the collective agreement as a tool for corporate social responsibility. We question ourselves to see if this traditional labour tool could be used, like the code of conduct, to confine unions’ participation in corporate decisions. With the Portrait statistique des conventions collectives analysées au Québec en 2006, we have validated the frequency, subject and participation level of unions in collective joint committees by comparing CSR and non CSR organizations. It appears that unions’ participation to corporate decisions is not higher in collective agreements of CSR organizations. Nevertheless, our analysis shows that two CSR tools other than a code of conduct adopted by the organization coincide with unions’ participation, that are the signature of a global framework agreement and participation to the UN Global Compact.
International Framework Agreement Code of Conduct Joint Committee Concertation Concertation Collective Agreement Stakeholder Corporate Social Responsibility Trade Union