Employee participation, ethics and corporate social responsibility

Abstract

Employee participation is deemed necessary in the name of good governance and corporate social responsibility. For this reason it forms an essential aspect of legal instruments drafted by international public institutions and aimed at multinational enterprises. Despite this, enterprises clearly prefer to take a unilateral approach in the rules they adopt to implement CSR policies, and an individual approach to employee relations, to the detriment of collective labour relations. CSR thus presents two radically different facets: one of which is favourable to transnational social dialogue, while the other presents firms with an opportunity to regain areas of control over their employees at the expense of public freedoms and fundamental rights. The co-existence of these two aspects of CSR confronts public authorities with the following dilemma: either they allow self-regulation to take its course, and risk seeing violations of international labour law and national legislation, or they intervene in order to ensure compliance with existing international instruments.