Collective bargaining agreements

Disclosure focus

Disclosure 2-30 requires an organization to report the percentage of its total employees whose working conditions and terms of employment are regulated by one or more collective bargaining agreements.

The percentage must be calculated by dividing the number of employees covered by collective bargaining agreements by the total number of employees reported under Disclosure 2-7-a and multiplying the result by 100. The calculation must therefore use the same entities, employee definition, measurement methodology and reporting-period basis used for GRI 2-7-a.

An employee is covered where the organization is obligated to apply a collective bargaining agreement to that employee. Union membership, union representation, union recognition and works council representation should not be used as substitutes for collective bargaining agreement coverage. The percentage of employees covered can be higher or lower than the percentage of unionized employees.

Employees covered by more than one collective bargaining agreement must be counted only once. If no employees are covered, the organization must report 0%.

Collective bargaining refers to negotiations between one or more employers or employers’ organizations and one or more workers’ organizations, such as trade unions, with the objective of reaching a collective agreement on working conditions and terms of employment and regulating relations between employers and workers.

Collective bargaining agreements can exist at organization, site, industry or national level and can apply to specific occupational or geographic groups. Internal terms such as union deal, staff agreement or operations agreement should be mapped to the official definition before they are included.

For employees not covered by collective bargaining agreements, the organization must report whether their working conditions and terms of employment are influenced or determined based on collective bargaining agreements that cover other employees of the organization or based on collective bargaining agreements from other organizations.

Where neither basis applies, the organization should state this directly. For example: “The working conditions and terms of employment of employees not covered by collective bargaining agreements are not influenced or determined based on collective bargaining agreements covering other employees of the organization or agreements from other organizations. Their remuneration and other terms are determined through the organization’s market-benchmarking and employment-policy processes.”

The requirement concerns the basis used for working conditions and terms of employment; it does not require the organization to state that non-covered employees receive exactly the same terms as covered employees.

Where all employees are covered, the organization can state that there are no non-covered employees to whom GRI 2-30-b applies. Where no employees are covered, the organization must report 0% and still explain whether the working conditions and terms of employment of the employees are based on collective bargaining agreements elsewhere or are not based on any such agreements.

A regional or country breakdown and comparison with industry benchmarks can be reported as optional additional information. They do not replace the organization-wide percentage based on the total employee population reported under GRI 2-7-a.

A policy commitment on freedom of association and collective bargaining is reported under GRI 2-23-b-i or GRI 3-3-c and does not replace the requirements of GRI 2-30.

If the organization does not have collective bargaining agreements, it should report the resulting 0% coverage rather than applying a reason for omission. Reasons for omission are permitted only where required information cannot be reported. In that case, the affected requirement, applicable reason and required explanation must be provided in the GRI content index.

This LRA educational guidance supports disclosure preparation. For the exact requirements, always refer to the official GRI source.