Ewa Staworzynska Archives

OECD Global Forum on Responsible Business Conduct

Published on March 3, 2014

OECD Forum on Integrity

BIAC will participate in the OECD Forum on Integrity on March 19, held as part of the OECD’s second annual Integrity Week (March 17-21), which includes a series of events relating to anti-corruption and integrity (click here). The forum will provide a platform for government officials as well as experts from international organizations, business and civil society to discuss best practices plus recent developments and projects relating to anti-corruption and integrity building. Klaus Moosmayer, chair of the BIAC Task Force on Anti-Corruption/Bribery will be part of the panel on new anti-corruption and integrity projects. On the same day, the BIAC Task Force will organize a luncheon discussion with the participation of the Chair of the OECD Working Group on Bribery to discuss BIAC’s strategic contribution to the OECD in this area.

For further information, please contact Shaun Donnelly (sdonnelly@uscib.org).

Last year, the OECD launched the annual Global Forum on Responsible Business Conduct to strengthen international dialogue on responsible business conduct and contribute to the effective implementation of the OECD Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises (MNEs).

This year’s Global Forum, which will take place in Paris on June 26-27, will take stock of the efforts in global responsible business conduct since the 2013 meeting, with a particular focus on developments in emerging economies and challenging investment environments.

Business participation in the forum is being organized through BIAC, the Business and Industry Advisory Committee to the OECD.

The forum will feature sessions on responsible investment in the textiles sector, stakeholder engagement in the extractive sector as well as responsible business conduct along agricultural supply chains and in the financial sector. The Forum will also include a session on the grievance mechanism of the OECD MNE Guidelines, as well as regional side-events.

The Global Forum will take place back-to-back with the meeting of National Contact Points of the MNE Guidelines, which will include a consultation with stakeholders, as well as other high-level events.

For further information on the Global Forum click here. Active business participation is encouraged. If you would like to participate, please contact Hanni Rosenbaum at BIAC (rosenbaum@biac.org).

 

Staff contact: Rachel Spence

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Business and Human Rights Forum a Step Backward

Published on December 6, 2013

USCIB and two of the global business groups with which we are affiliated – the International Organization of Employers(IOE) and the International Chamber of Commerce (ICC) – represented business at the second annual United Nations Forum on Business and Human Rights, December 2-4 in Geneva. A number of USCIB member companies also attended, including BP, Chevron, GE, Google, Hess, Microsoft, Nestlé and Procter & Gamble.

The annual UN forum is designed to bring business, government, civil society and other stakeholders together to discuss the status, opportunities and challenges of implementing the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights.

According to Adam Greene, USCIB’s vice president for labor affairs and corporate responsibility, this year’s discussion was much more negative and critical towards business. The consensus developed by John Ruggie, the former UN special representative for business and human rights, during his mandate is fraying and may collapse if left unaddressed.

In addition, the obligation of governments, under the UN Guiding Principles, to protect human rights continues to be minimized, with nearly all of the attention focused on companies’ concomitant responsibility to respect human rights.

The forum concluded with a number of statements that the UN Guiding Principles have not worked and that the UN should develop a legally binding treaty on multinational enterprises. The government of Ecuador plans to organize a meeting to push this proposal forward at the next meeting of the UN Human Rights Council.

Read more in the IOE news release on the forum.

Staff contact: Adam Greene

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OECD Holds Conflict Minerals Forum in Central Africa

Published on November 19, 2013
Panelists at the forum in Kigalai, Rwanda. “The biggest challenge continues to be the de facto embargo caused by Dodd-Frank," said USCIB's Adam Greene (far left).
Panelists at the forum in Kigalai, Rwanda. “The biggest challenge continues to be the de facto embargo caused by Dodd-Frank,” said USCIB’s Adam Greene (far left).

For the first time ever, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) brought its leading multi-stakeholder initiative on conflict minerals to the affected region in Central Africa.

The 6th OECD Forum on Responsible Mineral Supply Chains, held jointly with the UN Group of Experts on the Democratic Republic of the Congo and the International Conference of the Great Lakes Region, met November 13-15 in Kigali, Rwanda to review how responsible sourcing is working in practice in the region. Adam Greene, USCIB’s vice president for labor and corporate responsibility, played an active role at the forum.

The OECD initiative has become the key international process on conflict minerals – bringing together all the relevant players, including the OECD member governments, all the governments of Central Africa, local and international civil society groups and business representatives from the entire mineral supply chain from mining straight through to end producer or retailer. Additionally, the OECD initiative has produced the only internationally recognized due diligence guidance on conflict minerals, as well as two more detailed guides: one on tin, tantalum and tungsten (3T), and another on gold.

Unintended consequences of Dodd-Frank law

Reflecting the influence of the OECD process on this issue, the European Commission has indicated that proposed EU legislation on conflict minerals will be based entirely on the OECD Due Diligence Guidance, in an effort to avoid the unintended consequences of Section 1502 of the U.S. Dodd-Frank Act.

“The OECD forum meeting in Kigali was an important opportunity to assess how the due diligence guidance was working in practice in the region, strengthen regional programs and review ongoing challenges,” Greene said. “The biggest challenge continues to be the de facto embargo caused by Dodd-Frank, which created enormous disincentives for any sourcing from the region.”

Rwanda, for example, has implemented a country-wide chain of custody program that fully conforms with the OECD due diligence guidance, yet producers in the country still cannot find buyers in European or North American markets, because Dodd-Frank imposes the same burden on all sourcing from the region, regardless of whether it is responsible sourcing or not.

USCIB is working actively with the Business and Industry Advisory Committee (BIAC) to the OECD and business groups from Central Africa to promote responsible sourcing of minerals and to create incentives for sourcing that could potentially off-set the disincentives created by Dodd-Frank.

A range of companies – including Boeing, Ford, GE, HP, Intel, Lockheed, Motorola Solutions, Northrop, Siemens, Texas Instruments and UTC – and numerous industry associations are participating in the OECD initiative. USCIB has played a key role in helping to coordinate business participation in the process, and Greene has been elected vice-chair of the initiative’s Multi-Stakeholder Steering Group.

Materials from the meeting in Kigali will be posted on the OECD due diligence guidance homepage (click here). The next OECD forum will be held in May 2014 at OECD headquarters in Paris.

Staff contacts: Adam Greene

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Employers Urge ILO to Support Migration Policies in Light of Labor Market Needs

Published on November 15, 2013

Immigration

Employer delegates attending an International Labor Organization meeting in Geneva last week on labor migration called on the ILO to support a broad-based approach to migration that takes into account labor market needs.

The meeting was attended by experts from each of the ILO’s tripartite constituencies – governments, employers’ organizations and trade unions – who were joined by observers from UN agencies and international bodies including the International Organization for Migration. Employer representation in the ILO is organized via the International Organization of Employers.

Among the issues on the agenda was follow-up to last month’s UN High-Level Dialogue on Migration and Development and ongoing work on a Post-2015 Development Agenda, in particular challenges and opportunities for the ILO. The meeting also addressed the effective protection of migrant workers, sound labor market needs assessment and skills recognition, and cooperation and social dialogue for well-governed labor migration and mobility.

“Demographic realities and business needs increase the need for greater labor mobility,” said Ellen Yost, a migration attorney with Fragomen, Del Rey, Bernsen & Loewy, told the meeting. “However, government policies around the world increasingly have the effect of restricting mobility. The employers’ group urges governments to recognize the importance of international labor mobility for economic growth, competitiveness and development and to adopt clearer, simpler and more consistent rules and procedures for easier cross-border movement of skills.”

Read more on the IOE website.

More on USCIB’s Labor and Employment Policy Committee

BIAC Survey on Business and Gender Diversity

Published on October 10, 2013

USCIB would appreciate your input for the BIAC Survey on Business and Gender Diversity, which should take just a few minutes to complete.

BIAC (the Business and Industry Advisory Committee to the OECD) and Deloitte are partnering on this survey to gauge the extent of change in advancing women into more senior positions that may have occurred within companies and within markets. They also wish to assess the development and impact of government and regulatory support to these efforts over the last few years.

The survey comes in follow-up to a 2012 BIAC report, produced in conjunction with the American Chamber of Commerce in France, entitled Putting All Our Minds to Work: Harnessing the Gender Dividend, which presented a business case for promoting female talent, with examples of how businesses in OECD member countries are advancing women’s empowerment.

The BIAC survey will remain open until October 31.

Staff contact: Justine Badimon

At ILO Employers Urge Steps to Reduce Informal Economy

Published on September 24, 2013
USCIB’s Adam Greene (left) at the ILO meeting
USCIB’s Adam Greene (left) at the ILO meeting

At an International Labor Organization meeting earlier this month in Geneva, business representatives from around the world joined government and trade union officials in contributing perspectives on ways to reduce participation in the untaxed, unregulated “informal” economy.

Under the banner of the International Organization of Employers (IOE), part of USCIB’s global network, the business delegation stressed that a key factor contributing to the prevalence of informality is the cost of doing business in a country. Adam Greene, USCIB’s vice president for labor and corporate responsibility, took part and helped prepare the employers’ closing statement.

“Entrepreneurs and enterprises in the informal economy struggle to do business in a situation of legal uncertainty and insecurity, and are faced with numerous economic constraints,” stated Michael Chiam of the Malaysian Employers’ Federation. “They need the tools to buy and sell their products legally, to own property and commercial use of property, to enter into legal contracts, to establish a business identity, to raise capital, to sell shares, to legally export. In essence, to have the official recognition of their property and business ownership.”

According to Greene, the discussion is part of an effort expected to lead to an ILO recommendation on informality in 2015 that will serve as one of the key UN instruments on the issue. “It will, we hope, help push the UN’s effort to develop new Sustainable Development Goals in the right direction,” he said. “Informality can reflect a fundamental lack of effective governance, and good national governance will be critical to assure the success of the SDGs.”

Greene said that, from the employers’ perspective, the ILO has a key role to play in addressing the issue of informality, because promoting employment and sustainable enterprises, as well as fundamental principles and rights at work, are at the very heart of the ILO’s mission.

At the Geneva session, business representatives criticized the narrow focus of an ILO questionnaire on labor markets, which they said had led to unhelpful proposals for formalizing workers and upgrading workers’ rights, but not addressing issues surrounding business formation and entrepreneurship. A focus solely on labor rights, they argued, would actually serve as a disincentive to formalization. They said a wider range of measures should be taken into consideration, including promoting effective national institutions and administration, implementing judicial reform, and easing business registration and licensing.

Staff contact: Adam Greene

More on USCIB’s Labor and Employment Policy Committee

Business Weighs in on Job Creation at G20 Labor Ministerial

Published on July 23, 2013

On July 18, representatives of the Business and Industry Advisory Committee (BIAC) to the OECD and the International Organization of Employers (IOE) met with G20 labor ministers in Moscow, emphasizing the need for open and competitive markets to stimulate growth and job creation through policies that enable private enterprise.

In a joint statement, BIAC and IOE focused on the importance of a qualified and mobile workforce, good governance, and reliable policies for companies to invest and generate employment.

USCIB Senior Counsel Ronnie Goldberg, who is an IOE regional vice president and chairs BIAC’s labor and employment committee, joined the business delegation, which was led by B20 Chair Alexander Shokhin, president of the Russian Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs.

The business statement urged governments to commit to policies conducive to private sector-led growth and job creation, improve policy consistency between governments and increase business confidence to invest. It also said that properly implementing comprehensive and ambitious national structural reforms would promote job creation and economic development. The business groups also voiced support for implementing non-distortive taxation at levels that encourage enterprise and investment, reducing high non-wage labor costs and investing in human capital to enable labor market flexibility, and promoting innovation and entrepreneurship, especially youth entrepreneurship.

Looking at specific measures to spur employment, especially youth employment, BIAC and IOE stressed the importance of enhancing employability through quality education, training, workplace learning and incentives for all to work. Business also supports the IOE/BIAC Global Apprenticeships Alliance, a global company network aimed at broadening the scope and number of apprenticeships in order to address youth employability, as well as joint initiatives with labor to cultivate youth employment.

Opening the gathering, Maxim Topilin, Russia’s minister of labor and social protection, expressed appreciation for the participation of the social partners in the G20. “These consultations are very useful and allow us to see a different perspective on the issues that we address,” he said. “The social partners’ ideas and recommendations based on their expertise facilitate the G20 decision-making process with respect to such key issues as employment, labor relations development and social protection.”

More on USCIB’s Labor & Employment Committee

USCIBs Greene to Chair New Human Rights Working Group

Published on July 19, 2013

In June, the International Organization of Employers (IOE) announced the creation of several policy working groups to reinforce member ownership of the policies adopted by the organization and to create useful and timely output drawing on the wider expertise of the IOE’s worldwide employer network.

Among these is a new CSR and Business and Human Rights Policy Working Group, which will be chaired by Adam Greene, USCIB’s vice president for labor and corporate responsibility. Greene’s appointment underscores the active leadership role he and a broad array of USCIB members are playing in this area.

The working group will meet in Geneva on September 26 and December 2. Please contact us if you would like more information.

More on USCIB’s Corporate Responsibility Committee

On Bangladesh Global Employers Call for Focus on Tripartite Process

Published on May 24, 2013
Rescue workers at the collapsed Rana Plaza building site in Bangladesh
Rescue workers at the collapsed Rana Plaza building site in Bangladesh

Employers around the world have closely followed developments surrounding the tragic collapse of the Rana Plaza building in Bangladesh that killed more than 1,000 people.

The International Organization of Employers (IOE), part of USCIB’s global; network, issued a statement reiterating its deep regret and sadness, and expressing solidarity with the victims and their families. “Efforts must now be intensified to ensure that these kinds of tragedies are not repeated,” the IOE said.

The problems culminating in the Rana Plaza collapse affect more than one sector of Bangladesh’s economy, not just the garment sector, the IOE noted. “Fire safety, and issues of health and safety generally, are applicable across sectors and across business size, whether it produces for export or for domestic consumption.”

The IOE voiced support for the action plan the International Labor Organization created as the result of a high-ILO level mission to Bangladesh, following broad tripartite consultation with the Bangladesh Employers’ Federation, workers representatives and the Bangladesh government.

The IOE “calls on donor governments to provide the ILO with the resources necessary to implement the plan of action and in doing so to respond to the needs of constituents in Bangladesh that they have themselves identified.”

According to Adam Greene, USCIB’s vice president for labor and corporate responsibility, lasting change can only come from within the country, with the national government working directly with the social partners in Bangladesh.  “That is why we fully support the ILO-lead National Action Plan and will support a Better Work program in Bangladesh after the government makes the necessary labor law reforms,” he said.

A joint initiative of the ILO and the World Bank, with strong support from the IOE and USCIB, the Better Work program brings together governments, employers, workers and global companies to address working conditions in supplier factories. The program assesses compliance with international labor standards and national labor laws, posts reports online and provides targeted remedial training to improve compliance with labor standards.

Staff contact: Adam Greene

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USCIB Members Visit Capitol Hill to Discuss Customs Reauthorization

Published on February 28, 2013

4460_image002Earlier this month, Nasim Deylami, USCIB’s manager for customs and trade facilitation, led a group of members in meetings with Congressional staff from the House Subcommittee on Trade to relay USCIB’s comments on the Customs Trade Facilitation and Enforcement Act (H.R. 6642) and the Customs Enhanced Enforcement and Trade Facilitation Act (H.R. 6656).

The bills, released by the majority and minority leaders of the House Subcommittee on Trade, were introduced at the end of the 112th Congress to give stakeholders an opportunity to comment on the legislation, a step that was welcomed by the trade community after several years of waiting for a customs re-authorization bill.

The bills would codify new pilot programs, such as Centers for Excellence (CEE), authorize critical funding for crucial programs such as the Automatic Commercial Environment (ACE), and mandate public-private partnerships between the Department of Homeland Security, the Department of Treasury, Customs and Border Protection, and the private sector. The two drafts are virtually identical in content, except for Title III on Prevention of Evasion of Antidumping and Countervailing Duty Orders.

“USCIB applauds the common ground struck in the remaining sections of the bills, and we remain very hopeful that the parties will soon reach an agreement on the two percent that differs,” said Jerry Cook, vice president of government and trade relations with Hanesbrands and chair of USCIB’s Customs and Trade Facilitation Committee  “We cannot afford to let the opportunity to achieve a long awaited customs reauthorization bill pass by and we encourage Congress, CBP and the trade community to work together to strike a balance between trade facilitation and enforcement measures.”

In addition to Cook and Deylami, USCIB was represented by members from DHL; UPS; eBAY; Sandler, Travis & Rosenberg; Barnes, Richardson, and Colburn; 3M; TechAmerica; and Oracle.

Staff contact: Nasim Deylami

More on USCIB’s Custom and Trade Facilitation Committee