Centro de Documentos
Company Monitor Unilever Mexico - Summary
por Gilberto Ortiz
The purpose of the Company Monitor project is to describe, analyse and report on
existing labour conditions in transnational companies. For this purpose, the project
uses labour standards established in ILO agreements and the OECD Guidelines for
Multinational Companies as reference points regarding dignified labour conditions,
Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR), and accountability to society. The project also
considers Mexican labour legislation itself.
The elaboration of the Company Monitor’s studies aims at identifying the degree of adherence by companies to labour rights established in these national and international norms.
The objective of the study is to document the company’s actions and progress in these areas while also identifying some of its problems and challenges. We hope that the document serves as a starting point for discussion among social actors, with the purpose to contribute to achieve the social and economic objectives established by these labour rights and obligations, within sustainable development and with social justice.
In the case of the Unilever de México, contact was pursued with the highest levels of the corporation to request its collaboration in the Company Monitor Project, similar to procedures followed in the cases of Philips Mexicana or the Akzo Nobel companies. However, we were unable to produce the desired response. The presidency of Unilever de México never directly responded to our request for co-operation for the research, and did not accept any personal appointments. The only contact we were able to achieve was by telephone or electronic mail. The responses to our communications persistently delayed providing concrete answers by transferring responsibility along a chain of command until we reached the last link, which then assumed absolute silence, by then very late in the year 2005.1 By then we were already exploring possibilities through the unions, which is a difficult route to pursue given that public registries of organisations in Mexico are limited and unreliable, in addition to the resistance of many unions perhaps due to unfamiliarity with this type of request and the tendency to associate such requests with political interests which compete with their own. Contact was pursued with three unions, only one of which, that of the Unilever HPC Company, accepted to sit down with us.
This report was therefore elaborated exclusively through interviews carried out in January 2006 with the General Secretary of the head union in Unilever de México HPC, the “Union of Workers of the Chemical, Petrochemical, and Carbo-Chemical Industry and Allied Workers of the Mexican Republic” (Sindicato de Trabajadores de la Industria Química, Petroquímica, Carboquímica, Similares y Conexos de la República Mexicana).
Report elaborated by:
- CILAS - Centro de Investigación Laboral y Asesoría Sindical
- SOMO - Centre for research on multinational corporations
- FNV Mondiaal
The elaboration of the Company Monitor’s studies aims at identifying the degree of adherence by companies to labour rights established in these national and international norms.
The objective of the study is to document the company’s actions and progress in these areas while also identifying some of its problems and challenges. We hope that the document serves as a starting point for discussion among social actors, with the purpose to contribute to achieve the social and economic objectives established by these labour rights and obligations, within sustainable development and with social justice.
In the case of the Unilever de México, contact was pursued with the highest levels of the corporation to request its collaboration in the Company Monitor Project, similar to procedures followed in the cases of Philips Mexicana or the Akzo Nobel companies. However, we were unable to produce the desired response. The presidency of Unilever de México never directly responded to our request for co-operation for the research, and did not accept any personal appointments. The only contact we were able to achieve was by telephone or electronic mail. The responses to our communications persistently delayed providing concrete answers by transferring responsibility along a chain of command until we reached the last link, which then assumed absolute silence, by then very late in the year 2005.1 By then we were already exploring possibilities through the unions, which is a difficult route to pursue given that public registries of organisations in Mexico are limited and unreliable, in addition to the resistance of many unions perhaps due to unfamiliarity with this type of request and the tendency to associate such requests with political interests which compete with their own. Contact was pursued with three unions, only one of which, that of the Unilever HPC Company, accepted to sit down with us.
This report was therefore elaborated exclusively through interviews carried out in January 2006 with the General Secretary of the head union in Unilever de México HPC, the “Union of Workers of the Chemical, Petrochemical, and Carbo-Chemical Industry and Allied Workers of the Mexican Republic” (Sindicato de Trabajadores de la Industria Química, Petroquímica, Carboquímica, Similares y Conexos de la República Mexicana).
Report elaborated by:
- CILAS - Centro de Investigación Laboral y Asesoría Sindical
- SOMO - Centre for research on multinational corporations
- FNV Mondiaal