Social charter for Faber-Castell

IG Metall press release, 7 March 2000

Metall has signed an agreement with the German multinational which guarantees minimum social standards.

GERMANY: Faber-Castell, one of the world's leading producers of writing and drawing instruments, has signed an agreement with the German metalworkers' union, IG Metall, to respect minimum social standards in all its operations, both national and international. According to an IG Metall press release, the respective social charter was signed in Stein/Nuremberg, where the company is based, on March 3, 2000, by the company's president, Anton Wolfgang Graf von Faber-Castell, and IG Metall's president, Klaus Zwickel.

According to the agreement, Faber-Castell, which is the world's largest pencil manufacturer, guarantees working conditions for all its 5,500 workforce worldwide in conformity with the core labour standards of the International Labour Organisation. This means the prohibition of child labour, the respect of workers' rights to freedom of association and the right to organise and bargain collectively. Some of the countries in which the MNC is represented are: Australia, Brazil, Colombia, India, Indonesia and Malaysia.

Commenting on the newly-signed accord, Klaus Zwickel declared that "it is one of IG Metall's strategic policies to agree upon company codes of conduct so as to pave the way for binding obligations in ecological and social minimum standards." Furthermore, IG Metall would like to see core labour standards contained in all international trade and investment agreements.

The Faber-Castell agreement was initially negotiated by the former German Wood and Plastics Workers' Union, which merged with IG Metall in January of this year.