Yet again trade unions mobilize the French Corporate Duty of Vigilance legislation on human rights to challenge a multinational corporation

The International Transport Workers’ Federation (ITF), the European Transport Workers’ Federation (ETF) and an international trade union alliance have combined forces to call on the European entity of US transport and logistics company XPO, with its European headquarters in France, to comply with its legal duty of vigilance in relation to human rights. According to the trade unions, XPO has not complied with the regulations in so far as the content of its vigilance plan does not fulfill key requirements and the plan was not formulated in collaboration with employee representatives. The absence of stakeholder consultation, which is referred to in the legislation is also one of the grievances that the international union federation Uni Global and the French legal activist NGO, Sherpa (for the protection and defense of victims of economic crimes) jointly levied against French group Teleperformance in July 2019 (c.f. article No. 11242). Both cases bear witness to the willingness on behalf of the trade unions to use the leverage the French national legislation has to offer in order to challenge multinational corporate groups.