#Sustainability

2024-10-24

Inditex and UNI Global Union renew their global agreement

Inditex and UNI Global Union, a federation of 20 million service workers, including retail workers, from more than 150 countries, renewed the Framework Agreement originally entered into by the two organisations in 2009 to foster best labour practices.

This new framework agreement reinforces the firm’s endorsement of the labour principles enshrined in the internationally recognised conventions and delves deeper into newer challenges such as the inclusion and retention of people with functional diversity.

Both parties will also work together to combat sexual harassment and gender violence in the workplace, prioritising worker awareness to ensure victims know how to proceed in the event of possible breaches of their fundamental rights. Together, they will also reinforce appropriate channels for notifying incidents in a confidential manner and procedures for guaranteeing adequate investigations and foster the implementation of precautionary, corrective and/or disciplinary measures.

During the signing event organised at the company's headquarters in Arteixo (Coruña), Inditex’s CEO, Óscar García Maceiras, and the general secretary of UNI Global Union, Christy Hoffman, revisited the key milestones that have marked the collaboration between the Group and global union and outlined the challenges being tackled by the new agreement in an attempt to stay in touch with the ever-changing global economic and social reality after 15 years of fruitful work together.

Óscar García Maceiras said how “the commitment to the more than 160,000 people who populate our company and our efforts to have a positive impact on our communities are strategic priorities for Inditex”, going on to underline that, “constantly improving the opportunities to engage with the unions is key to continuing to make progress on the common goal of ensuring workers’ wellbeing”.

Lastly, he stressed that “the inclusion of persons with disabilities is one of the key thrusts of our commitment to people”, to which end he recalled the commitment made by Inditex to the ILO in January 2023 to boost inclusion of such professionals into its network of stores, logistics facilities, warehouses and offices all around the world, an effort that will “translate into the addition of 1,500 new Group employees by February 2025”.

The general secretary of UNI Global Union, Christy Hoffman, said that “Our agreement is a much-needed response to pressing issues facing retail workers today including a post-pandemic spike in third-party violence as well as the effects of digitalization. We also see many countries in Europe adopting Human Rights and Due Diligance legislation, on to that end we are pleased Inditex recognizes exercises its responsibilities in this agreement and will now include franchised operations as a topic of discussion with UNI Global Union”.

The event was also attended by representatives from the main Spanish unions, including the general secretary of Servicios Comisiones Obreras, José María Martínez, and the general vice-secretary of FeSMC-UGT, Pedro Aller, as well as members of the European Works Council. According to the representative from Comisiones Obreras, “labour rights are the seeds of advanced democracies, understood as social states under the rule of law. Those rights are based on the freedom of association. Global labour agreements such as Inditex's signify a commitment, at the level of transnational enterprises, with democracy around the world”. The spokesperson for UGT said "This marks a new horizon for continuing to flesh out this agreement and the values it enshrines and to further dialogue that is constructive and collaborative. As has already been proven, this agreement is one of the instruments best suited to ensuring compliance with workers’ social, labour and economic rights".

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