Orpea is by no means the first company that comes to mind when one mentions “ethical employment, social dialogue, collective bargaining and trade union rights”. However, these issues are the subject of a global agreement signed by the nursing home group’s management with UNI Global Union, a global union federation with 20 million members, on 8 April. “The content of the agreement is better and stronger than most of our agreements,” argues Christy Hoffman, general secretary of UNI Global Union, who points to “union access to workers without management present” and “training for managers on what it means to be union neutral”. Under the agreement, Orpea commits to recognising “the important role that unions play in representing employees’ interests” and remaining “neutral on the question of unionisation”.
Orpea: global agreement on “ethical employment and trade union rights” is ill received
French nursing home group Orpea has penned a three-year global framework agreement with UNI Global Union, for a partnership covering ethical employment, social dialogue, collective bargaining and trade union rights. The agreement comes as the group, which employs 70,000 people across 23 countries, faces various complaints of discrimination against union members as well as investigations into its working conditions in France. It has been panned by various trade union federations as a "pseudo agreement".
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