Companies are becoming more involved in programs to educate workers on their codes of conduct, we should be aware of this. In any educational exercise on codes, the right to organise needs to be dealt with thoroughly. If this right is not upheld, codes will not lead to a substantial improvement for workers, but may be misused and manipulated to prevent the formation and functioning of trade unions. Therefore in session 4, three women linked workers' education to the right to organise. Josefa Rivera from MEC, a NGO from Nicaragua, explained that their legal Code of Ethics came from the workers themselves.
Workers are no longer afraid to speak out.
MEC has been meeting with the unions to see how the code and union collective bargaining fit together. In Indonesia, according to Suprihatin, codes are a tool to put pressure on companies and government. Over the past year, they have met four times with government to assert their right to organise. Mostly we get promises about 'tomorrow' but tomorrow never comes. So, the union hopes that codes and international support can help to bring extra pressure.