The UN Global Compact is a fixed structure: ten principles in four areas. Know the count, the areas, and where the labour principles sit in the numbering.
The count and the areas
- Ten principles, grouped in four areas: human rights, labour, environment and anti-corruption.
- Seventeen is the count of the Sustainable Development Goals, not the Compact's principles.
- People, planet, profit and partnership is triple-bottom-line phrasing the Compact does not use. Economic, social, governance and ethical, and health, safety, environment and quality, are common corporate reporting groupings and not the Compact's four areas.
The labour principles are numbers 3 through 6
Principles 3-6 are the labour principles:
- Upholding freedom of association and the effective recognition of the right to collective bargaining — this is the one about organizing and negotiating collectively, and it is the first of the four.
- The elimination of all forms of forced and compulsory labour
- The effective abolition of child labour
- The elimination of discrimination in respect of employment and occupation
Human rights, environment and anti-corruption principles fall outside the 3-6 range.
Statements that sound like principles but are not
- A minimum of four weeks of paid annual leave is a leave standard the Compact principles do not state.
- Publishing executive-to-median pay ratios is a disclosure practice, not a principle.
- Recognizing a single global union federation misstates freedom of association, which concerns the right to organize and bargain collectively, not recognition of one body.
- Supporting a precautionary approach to environmental challenges is a genuine Compact principle, but an environmental one — wrong answer to a labour question.
Carry this in: ten and four, and 3-6 is labour.