Uniglobal union investing pdf
Metrics Introduction veon is a multinational telecom and technology company headquartered in Amsterdam. Bangalink is a Bangladeshi subsidiary. On 11 July , uni submitted a complaint on behalf of the Bangalink Employees Union bleu. In its specific instance to the Dutch National Contact Point ncp , uni stated that Bangalink had violated the freedom of association by dismissing a union leader, harassing union members, and working with the Bangladeshi authorities to suppress the union. After uni submitted the specific instance, the ncp held several confidential meetings with both parties.
The case was put on hold in December and uni and veon attempted to resolve the issue directly. In September , uni requested the ncp to resume the specific instance notification because the issues regarding trade union rights in Bangalink had not been resolved.
According to veon, uni has an overriding policy objective of its own: the establishment of unions in telecommunications companies in Bangladesh. After several rounds of comments on drafts and meetings with Bangalink in Dhaka, Bangladesh, uni and veon, including clarification on Bangladeshi labor law by an independent legal expert, a final statement was published on the ncp website on 11 February The ncp first notes that all Dutch companies that conduct business abroad, including foreign entities headquartered in the Netherlands, are expected to adhere to the oecd Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises.
The ncp observes that the case concerns rights guaranteed by Article 2 of ilo Convention No. Bangladesh ratified this convention in The ilo has stated on many occasions that the stringent procedural conditions for the registration of trade unions in Bangladesh are not in line with international legislation and necessitate amendment of local legislation.
One of the points of concern was the high membership requirement 30 percent , on which it requested government action to truly reduce membership thresholds. Facebook Table 5 shows the validity measures for reflective constructs. For construct validity, a Principal Component Analysis with Varimax rotation 3 revealed that items ResourceAv4, Leadership1 and Leadership4 cross-loaded on different constructs above the cut-off value of 0.
Hence, they were dropped from the analysis. Items Influence3 and Risk4 loaded on Institutional enablers and Risk slightly below 0. The rest of the items loaded properly on intended constructs without cross-loadings discriminant validity and with Eigenvalues above 1 convergent validity. Resource availability was the construct with the highest standard deviation as respondents had diverse opinions as to whether social media are considered a priority that draws sufficient resources in their union.
On average, views were quite positive about these statements. The five constructs measuring Leadership provided interesting findings. While both communication departments Leadership1 and union leaders believe social media are important Leadership3 , communications officers feel stronger about this statement. This comes along an apparent gap in leadership from theory to practice as not all leaders have established particular goals and tasks for using social media Leadership5 , no matter how supportive they might be.
Similar to Resource availability, standard deviations for Leadership items were high. Benefits1 4. Benefits2 4. Benefits3 4. Benefits4 3. Benefits5 Please indicate the Increase the transparency and openness of our union. Benefits7 Increase participation in industrial actions. Benefits9 3. Risk1 3. Risk2 risks. Please indicate the extent to which you Can help employers monitor and even block union agree with the 3.
Risk3 following: Social media tools Can threaten the traditional profile of our union. ResourceAv1 Using social media We have all the support needed in terms of skilled 3. ResourceAv2 resources, skills and expertise. Please Effective use of social media is well within our 3.
ResourceAv3 which you agree with the following: In our Social media are considered a priority given our union Leadership2 agree with the following Our leadership believes that social media can have 3. Leadership3 to how the leadership of Our leadership believes that social media can damage your union perceives the traditional profile of our organization.
Leadership5 Our fellow unions that use social media have 3. Enabler1 Institutional enablers Our fellow unions that use social media are 3. Enabler2 In their decisions to use social media, unions The union movement is interested in social media. Our members believe that we should use social Please indicate the 3. Enabler4 extent to which you Members that are crucial to us encourage us to use agree with the 3.
Enabler5 following: In our society, unions are expected to modernize themselves and social media can be useful in this 4. Enabler6 We are considering to become a social media active Strategy 3. Strategy1 Please indicate the extent to which the We are likely to become a social media active union 3. Strategy2 describe the strategic orientation of your union with regard to We expect to become a social media active union in 3.
Strategy3 Institutional enablers provided important results as well. Expectations for union modernisation Enabler6 , pressures from members Enabler4 and general interest of the union movement Enabler3 were all strongly supported by respondents. Pressures from other unions that have possibly benefited from social media are regarded as influential, but not to the same extent. Participation in CoP was medium among respondents with about one third stating that their 14 organisation participates in networks or communities that have an interest in the use of social media.
Table 5: Descriptive statistics for constructs including reliability measures for reflective variables. Correlations are up to 0. There are certain anticipated strong correlations between variables that represent union characteristics, for example, the positive correlation between Staff and Members. Other correlations were less expected. Risk is positively correlated with Staff and Density which possibly shows that established unions in their primary sectors of representation might perceive higher risks from using social media.
Institutional enablers have a strong positive relationship with Benefits and Leadership; the latter was also strongly correlated with Resource availability. Table 7 shows the correlations between the two dependent variables and the independent variables. Channels and Strategy have a medium positive correlation of 0.
The first important observation is that Benefits and Risk, the two variables that represent the technology dimension, have no correlation with the dependent variables. Hence, the expected benefits and risks of social media do not much affect decisions to use multiple channels and develop a strategy for a social media active union. Channels have a strong positive relationship with almost all the organisational and environmental variables, particularly Members and Participation in CoP.
However, statements about Strategy are only related to Resource availability, Leadership and Institutional enablers. Variables that directly measure the size and history of unions Staff, Age, Members and Density do not affect perceptions about how social media active the union is.
The total effect of predictor variables is Alternative stepwise regression models resulted in slightly higher adjusted R square for Channels The improvement was higher for Strategy Channels Strategy Benefits Additional comments and feedback Respondents were asked to provide additional comments about their experiences with online communications and social media. About 40 comments were received which mainly fit into four categories.
First, many noted that: 1 the potential of social media for union modernisation cannot be ignored and 2 the impact of social media has been substantial on reducing geographical fragmentation and accelerating mobilisation efforts. Closely related was the second category of comments, which stated that generational aspects have a prominent effect both among union staff and members: younger people are much more enthusiastic about online forms of communication.
Third, respondents commented that one of the main issues that hinder the use of social media is openness of communication structures. Leaders are not eager to allow a large number of union employees to produce union information on a regular basis. Also, leaders might wrongly associate social media with older forms of communication or perceive social media as suitable only for leisure activities.
This is closely linked with several concerns that personal contact in the workplace appears to be historically established in the union life and cannot be substituted. Privacy and exposure issues were also mentioned along with the need to demonstrate a careful attitude when using social media for any activity.
Finally, many comments were received about the need for support and possible ways forward. More support is required to understand the relevance of social media in union activities and adapt to the use of multiple channels. This is especially important for union campaigns that seek to reach a large number of people beyond the membership base.
Another area where need for support was identified was lack of ICT literacy, skills, resources and capacity to use social media. This is approached within the broader debate of union renewal and ICT. Channel and audience diversity The survey shows that, moving now beyond websites, the pursuit of more interactive communications seems to be a complicated task in progress in many unions internationally.
The use of a wider variety of information channels with engagement features seem to suggest that top-down structures of communication could be more decentralised. Union websites do not only reach a small audience of mainly union members as Ward and Lusoli had found. With unions trying to gain more members and influence in society, engagement might have to take place at multiple spaces and involve more audiences. Therefore, unions that are able to navigate through different channels and audiences can raise much more effective support for their activities.
An integrative communication strategy requires informed choices of using different channels so that activities remain relevant and consistent. The many available options contribute to plurality when sufficient commitment is demonstrated and the inherent features of tools are understood and exploited.
Unions that have a clear idea of how social media activities can happen are more likely to balance high expectations of responsiveness by their members. This is not always the case in practice as respondents to the survey were hesitant to agree that particular goals and tasks for using social media have been specified; even in unions with available resources where social media are prioritised.
Social media dimensions and union renewal Over 10 years ago, Diamond and Freeman questioned whether unions were seizing the opportunity of new technologies. As union websites have become more standard, the availability of social media poses similar questions and remains closely related to aspects of union renewal Martinez Lucio ; Kerr and Waddington Overall, the uptake of Internet tools by unions participating in the study suggests that there might be improvements in engagement in some parts.
Renewal through ICT might be taking place more rapidly in countries such as Brazil or Australia where social networking is growing rapidly and unions are seeking alternative ways to increase their influence. Unions in Europe, even if usually well-established and adequately resourced, do not always have the same urgency to promote new forms of engagement as reflected in the survey and further comments received. The desire of union communicators and leaders to engage in social media activities is much driven by beliefs that unions have to appear more interactive to the audiences with which they interact.
Beliefs about the importance of social media do not necessarily translate to good 19 practice. Mainly unions with a wider membership base, available staff and resources have more opportunities to participate in communities of practice, realise the relevance of social media and experiment with more channels. These findings clearly confirm earlier predictions that union communications on the web would be determined by size characteristics and the ability to allocate resources Greer ; Ward and Lusoli ; Stevens and Greer The anticipated benefits and risks of using social media are not in question but have limited effects in such decisions according to the relationships shown in the survey with the dependent variables.
Regardless of union size variables, it is not surprising to see that when social media are seen as a resource with clear value, they are treated more strategically by union leaders Ward and Lusoli Leadership defines the appropriateness of social media as an innovation and determines the mobilisation of necessary resources. The sooner union leaders define this relevance and guide developments the better unions will be able to act strategically.
If union leaders are not as enthusiastic about or even explicitly hinder social media activities, other union officers might act entrepreneurially to promote initiatives even with a view to increase their own sphere of influence. While this has been predicted by previous studies Ward and Lusoli ; Martinez Lucio and Walker , the opportunities for more flexible forms of communication now allow everyone to use social networking groups, Twitter or blogs for such purposes.
As much as these means might permit distributed discourses and contribute to more polyphonic unions Greene et al. Unions as networks of professionals If social media are allowing more union officials and members to voice their concerns, are they making unions more inclusive? Social media certainly facilitate opportunities for the self- organising of workers as in many professions a great proportion of activity is now happening on the web.
Barriers to online professional networking have been significantly lowered with sites such as LinkedIn and Facebook acting as professional networks. Blogging and microblogging applications provide the opportunity for real-time content around the whole range of professional issues.
The survey shows low to medium uptake of networking tools such as LinkedIn The higher use of Facebook groups and pages In fact, these organisations seem to be online networks themselves which provide the infrastructure for ad hoc connectivity among professionals and multiple channels to raise concerns even bypassing traditional structures of representation.
This suggests that unions have to rethink their role as facilitators of networking in the workplace and networks of professionals. The capacity to listen, identify useful information and intervene does not necessarily require mobilisation of resources.
Even compared to monitoring traditional media, there are useful tools that could facilitate establishing in-flow of information such as Twitter hashtags, email alerts, RSS feeds and social media dashboards.
Despite their importance, these aspects of networking and monitoring were very little mentioned in the survey and further comments. Unions as social movements Further to connecting professionals, social media can have a key effect on mobilising people around union campaigns. So far, citizen movements in the UK, Spain and Greece and other European countries have demonstrated the power of social media as an organising tool for networked individuals who express disagreement about radically changing conditions in their working life Theocharis Many of these citizen movements directly evolve around the European solidarity narrative, which can be the central space for trade unions to mobilise their members.
The Occupy movement, initiating from the USA, was rapidly expanded with support from transnational advocacy networks including trade unions. Given the fact that social injustice is one of the most important triggers of union mobilisation Kelly , it is important to consider how social media can enable unions to function as social movements specifically in Britain and countries of the Eurozone. Through online networking, the main narratives of solidarity in times of austerity can become viral, more easily understood and shared by the general public.
Their message can help the public realise that austerity measures, being implemented all over Europe, have a direct impact on workers and form the difficult reality behind financial measures and political agendas. These campaigns enable engagement with an active and networked audience that might not have a formal relationship with the union, but supports its causes by sharing key messages with their own networks. Concluding remarks Drawing on the findings of an international survey with UNI Global affiliates, this study assessed how unions are using social media and associated their use with technological, 21 organisational and environmental variables.
The study cannot offer conclusive statements in a rapidly changing technological context, but in line with previous studies in the area, it shows how leadership, resources, union characteristics and beliefs about the importance of social media drive decisions to use them Diamond and Freeman ; Fiorito et al. The survey shows interesting trends in how new information sharing and networking channels are contributing towards social media active unions which attempt to engage with diverse audiences.
The unions, whose responses were used in the survey analysis, have diverse characteristics and information needs. In addition to sample diversity, this exploratory work requires further limitations to be acknowledged. First, the choice of an online survey attracted respondents from unions where interest in online communications and social media is likely to be high.
Since the study does not aim to statistically generalise to the whole population of UNI Global affiliates or beyond, response bias has to be seen in terms of how it affects the exploration of relations between the variables. The profile and origin of unions that participated in the study section 4. Possible bias could mainly come from the language of origin with unions outside Europe or English-speaking countries being less likely to complete a questionnaire in English Harzing Second, as Fiorito et al.
The reliability of constructs used here serves the purpose of an exploratory work but might require changes before a similar study could be replicated. Third, the survey did not assess how the different channels are used by unions in detail.
Social media cannot be treated as a single entity or sets of practices with interchangeable properties. The types of interactions which they enable or enhance explain many of the decisions to use them. Despite the plethora of examples in the comments and feedback received, it was a choice not to extend the questionnaire in this direction.
Future work can certainly elaborate on these aspects and examine how different tools change union interactions with members e. For example, social media in the workplace, in the context of union activities and beyond, have important implications that merit attention Panagiotopoulos ; Bucher et al. The blurring of work-life boundaries is already an issue that creates tensions in employment relations and has triggered extensive research e. Boswell and Olson-Buchanan ; Fonner and Stache If union interactions become more ubiquitous due to the use of social media, how to plan and manage these transitions has to be addressed.
Technology itself poses some open issues here with the use of mobile devices smartphones, tablet computers being only briefly mentioned in the survey, but rapidly adopted by union members and young professionals who are likely to join unions. A network or community of practice can be defined as a group of professionals who share material, knowledge, practices and concerns Wenger and Snyder Such pressures are usually categorised as coercive legal compliance , normative professional practices accepted as standard in a field or mimetic copying practices from successful organisations DiMaggio and Powell The orthogonal Varimax rotation method was reported here after confirming that correlations between the factors are rather low below absolute values of 0.
Alternative Principal Component Analyses using Oblique rotation methods only slightly affected the cross- loadings and range of factor loadings for each reflective construct. We are particularly grateful to Rachel Cohen, the former Director of UNI Global Communications for her efforts to improve and distribute the questionnaire. We also thankfully recognise the support of the European Trade Union Confederation and Alex White for the same reason. The research was carried out under the project Di logos.
Net project partners are acknowledged for their general support and feedback on the survey design and findings. References Barrios, M. Blodgett, B. Boswell, W. Bucher, E. Carter, C. Chaison, G. Diamond, W. DiMaggio, P. Evans, J. Fiorito, J.
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