Synchronicity in Collaboration: Union Social Responsibility

There are synchronicities! Very often we find that the same thought[s] occur to different people at the same time for the same goal.

Mr. Sharad Patil, the erstwhile Secretary General of Employers Federation of India spoke to me [and two others] recently. His message was that the days of antagonism in employee relations are over. It was time to actively catalyse collaboration between Employers, Unions and Government too for better employee relations. So we organised a meeting of a small group of HR honchos.

Mr Jayasri Priyalal [he is a Sri Lankan based in Singapore] invited me to the Seminar. [More about it later]. He explained that UNI Apro was organising a sub-regional seminar in Kathmandu, targeting the Professionals and Managers. The theme was “Multi-stakeholder’s Collaboration: way forward for mutual adjustment to stimulate sustainable growth for just transition in South Asia.”

[UNI Global Union, based in Nyon, Switzerland, represents more than 20 million workers from over 900 trade unions in the fastest growing sectors in the world – skills and services. A total of 90% of new jobs are expected to be in these sectors in the next decade. UNI and our affiliates in all regions are driven by the responsibility to ensure these jobs are decent and workers’ rights are protected, including the right to join a union and collective bargaining.

Through its Sector Global Unions, UNI represents workers in Cleaning and Security, Commerce, Finance, Gaming, Graphical and Packaging, Hair and Beauty, Information, Communication, Technology and Services Industry (ICTS), Media, Entertainment and Arts, Post and Logistics, Social Insurance, Sport, Temp and Agency workers, and Tourism industries as well as Professionals and Managers, Women and Youth.

UNI’s Breaking Through strategy is about changing the rules of the game in the global labour market and ensuring justice and equality for working people. UNI is working with its affiliates to organise the global service sector workforce at a time of unprecedented precarious work, and record youth unemployment.]

Mr Priyalal’s thoughts, I recognised, matched ours. Yes, synchronicity! Mr Priyalal is the Director, Finance Sector, Professionals & Managers Group Activities of UNI Asia & Pacific. I requested him to permit me to record his thoughts on a video; he readily obliged.



So here it is: he calls it ‘Union Social Responsibility.’ Business Organisations should, with their Corporate Social Responsibility' should work hand in hand. The two concepts, Union Social Responsibility and Corporate Social Responsibility are indeed same or similar. Is that another evidence of synchronicity?

Watch the video:


Vivek S Patwardhan

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