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French retail multinational Carrefour and the Korean Federation of Private Service Workers' Unions (KPSU) have achieved a remarkable break through in their joint efforts to resolve longstanding labour differences. The company's central management and UNI Commerce participated in the final two days of discussions, which were held last week in the Korean capital Seoul. There is now an agreement between the Korean social partners in Carrefour about a new social dialogue oriented beginning in their relations.

The road to finally solving the long-standing labour relations problems in Carrefour Korea was long and tedious, with a seemingly endless range of meetings and discussions. The breakthrough finally came last week, something which was welcomed by all those concerned. Here, the union representatives line up for a picture in the Federation offices, where they held preliminary talks among themselves. KPSU president Kim Hyung-Keun, who played a key role in the very constructive discussions, is second from right. Next to him, in the middle of the picture, are the two UNI representatives who have accompanied the long negotiating process, Jan Furstenborg of UNI Commerce and Jay Choi, UNI's Korea representative. The young man who has the main responsibility of turning this common understanding into concrete social dialogue and collective agreements is standing in his red union jacket at the far left of the picture, Kim Kyung-wook, president of the Carrefour workers' union.

Through the Seoul agreement, the details of which are being formulated with the support of Carrefour's Paris Headquarters and UNI Commerce, the number two global retailer confirms its position as an employer which accepts that its workers unionise, and which is prepared to enter into a social dialogue with the unions in the company.

Global agreement proved once again its usefulness

The common understanding reached with the Korean commerce union is based on the ground-breaking global agreement on workers' rights, which Carrefour signed with Union Network International and UNI Commerce a few years ago. It follows previous positive progress reached through the cooperation between the company and UNI Commerce, in countries such as Indonesia, Brazil and Turkey. Even Spain, which somewhat surprisingly has for long suffered from trade union rights problems in some of the largest retailers, has benefited from positive developments in the application of the global agreement.

Carrefour is now clearly the 'good guy on the block' on the Korean retail scene, while Wal-Mart solidly occupies its usual position at the bottom of responsibility rankings. While Carrefour respects its global agreement with UNI and UNI Commerce, Wal-Mart immediately moved to oust the union which was present in Makro Cash & Carry when the Bentonville multinational took over its stores. Kim Kyung-wook, the Carrefour union president, was among those commerce trade union leaders who expressed their support and solidarity at a demonstration outside a Wal-Mart store in Seoul last week.

In Korea, Carrefour now further strengthens its position as the only major supermarket retailer to accept unionisation and collective agreements. Its leading competitors E-Mart, Tesco-Samsung and Wal-Mart have all been strongly anti-union, and have done their best to hinder any organising efforts. UNI Commerce has indeed approached Tesco informally about these problems, and will now expect the leading British retail multinational to follow Carrefour's lead and impose its social responsibility principles also on its joint venture in Korea.

Workers' rights support commitment and competitiveness

Last week's agreement builds on a good balance between full respect for the Carrefour workers' rights and a support by the union for the companies efforts to enhance its competitiveness. In an environment where Carrefour is the only major retailer that works from a unionised position, facing a non-unionised and anti-union competition, it is particularly important that it can be successful. One can also expect that the common understanding which has now been reached, and the management's determination to ensure the respect for workers' and  union rights, will do good for the commitment of the employees and thus promote productivity and competitiveness.

The Carrefour workers in Korea have their own company-based trade union, which is a member of the UNI-affiliated national federation KPSU. Although the formal negotiations were conducted on the federation level, the Carrefour union leadership was closely involved throughout the whole process. They will now need to follow up through concrete collective agreement negotiations, which will not be easy as many complicated issues need to be resolved. The main thing is, however, that the fundamental questions of labour relations are now resolved, the rest must be dealt with according to the normal procedures and rules of collective bargaining.

UNI Commerce and Carrefour's Paris headquarters will continue to be involved in the Korean process, helping to facilitate solutions to some of the most difficult issues. These will deal with organisational and structural developments in this highly competitive market, where Carrefour has declared its intentions to expand its presence.