Corporate Social Responsability: lost opportunities for workers and employers

Abstract

The purpose of this article is to discuss how collective bargaining between employees and employers reflects Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) discourse regarding to employees. The theoretical framework discusses the changes in industrial relations, especially those related to workers unions and also to the employers organizations. We also analyze the employers' organizations which is a rarely explored theme in literature. The qualitative research encompassed three collective negotiations among, on one hand three unions of workers and on the other hand two companies and one employer organization among the most actives in the metropolitan region of southeastern Brazil. The CSR indicators issued by Instituto Ethos were used as variables of analysis. The results show that neither the companies nor the unions related the themes claimed, bargained and/or agreed with the CSR Ethos indicators. Many clauses were constituted as indicators of CSR as a matter of fact but were not understood as such by both sides. © FECAP.