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They are huge, growing and operating in many transport sectors in virtually every country of the world. But who are the integrators and what do unions need to know about them?

Four companies dominate the thriving world of integrated express transport, in which road, rail and air freight services, which were once carried out by a plethora of local and national operations, are now controlled by giant global companies.

The big four – DHL, Federal Express, TNT, UPS, along with their many subcontractors – employ well over a million people worldwide. Thousands more are employed by other smaller, but growing companies.

Profiles of the 'big four' more>>

By 2008 the “integrators” are expected to be pulling in around US$42.4 billion between them – an increase of 20 per cent since 2003*. In this intensely competitive market the big companies are expanding through a continual process of acquisition, investment and diversification into newer areas such as supply chain management. All hold contracts with major multinational companies, including Samsung, Toyota, BMW, Nestle, Colgate-Palmolive and Canon* to name a few, and set out to answer their clients’ every transport and logistical need.

While each of the big four companies is currently strongest in its home region, all are fighting for new business in other regions. Asia Pacific (and particularly China) is the key market but they are also expanding into Central and South American markets.

The impact of constant movement and reorganisation in integrated transport is felt by thousands of workers in many different ways. When companies change hands, jobs are affected. Often a local or national workforce finds itself swallowed up into a vast global machine, under the control of a far distant employer. A union membership base may be split when the new employer begins to subcontract out company services.

The companies involved have varying relationships with trade unions, though union density – with the notable exceptions of UPS in the US and DHL in Germany – is generally low. Some unions have reported a good relationship. Others have started with hostility which has then improved. But in some cases the company is anti-union all the time.

Victimisation in DHL India DHL is a leading company in India, with a staff strength of around 1100 more>>

Human resources issues appear in most cases to be directed centrally from the headquarters or regional office and not locally. In theory at least, this means there should be corporate-wide policies relating to labour conditions and trade union recognition.

A policy-making centre provides a clear target to unions when engaging in international cooperation and solidarity with their counterparts overseas. The apparent sensitivity of these companies about their public image presents another opportunity for the unions, while the highly time sensitive nature of the operations of the integrators may present an aspect of vulnerability to industrial pressure.

Coordinating labour responses

For the first time, ITF affiliates from 16 countries attended an international meeting on integrators in London in February 2005 in order to find ways of using international union coordination as a tool to assist their organising efforts in the integrator companies. The ITF also works on this issue in cooperation with the global union federation UNI, which organises postal workers around the world.

Sharing their experiences of the companies operating in their countries, unions agreed to set up a network, coordinated by the ITF, and to work together on developing a set of minimum labour standards for adoption throughout the industry.

One possibility is that these standards could be reflected in an International Framework Agreement to be developed between ITF unions and integrator companies. In this case, a coordinated process of international collective bargaining would help to ensure implementation of the agreement in the different companies.

Through taking part in a process of cooperation, delegates to the meeting in London expressed the hope they would be able to motivate members in their own countries to support a dispute that may be taking place in the same company, but hundreds or thousands of miles away. They hoped to utilise this year’s ITF Road Transport Action Week Campaign on 10-16 October to promote initial demands.

Network members are also expected to meet in November in Washington DC at the invitation of the Teamsters union (IBT). Meanwhile the ITF is writing to top management of the companies asking for clarification of their corporate policies relating to industrial relations. From union reports to date, it appears that irrespective of central policies, the integrators tend to tailor their industrial relations approach to exploit circumstances in their different countries or regions of operation.

*Data taken from the Initial Report on DHL, UPS, FedEx and TNT, by Paula Hamilton, ITF/University of London logistics project worker.