In its report on 18 May, the IFC’s compliance advisor ombudsman (CAO) recommended that the IFC, the World Bank’s private-sector lending arm, improved compliance procedures at Avianca for IFC performance standard 2 on labour and working conditions. Read the report at http://goo.gl/mrvQEr.
The CAO report was a response to an ITF/ITUC complaint filed in November 2011. It sharply criticises the IFC’s handling of serious deficiencies at Avianca in respecting its employees’ freedom of association, and states that in light of information the IFC had received from Colombian unions and the ILO beforehand, it should not have made loan disbursements to Avianca in 2009. It also faults the IFC for violating its 2006 environmental and social sustainability policy by failing to require Avianca to disclose its action plans and assessments regarding compliance with IFC labour standards obligations.
ITUC general secretary Sharan Burrow said: “We agree with the CAO’s most important recommendation, that IFC should not give financial support to firms that are in clear violation of its social and environmental standards. It is obvious that once Avianca received the payments on its IFC loan it ceased to take the standards seriously and saw compliance as voluntary.”
ITF general secretary Stephen Cotton deplored the nearly seven years it had taken for the IFC to respond to union complaints about Avianca, which meant many workers had lost their jobs or quit the union due to employer pressure. He urged the IFC to publicly call on Avianca to cease its intimidation and discrimination against union members.
The ITUC has also invited the IFC to upgrade all its monitoring, implementation and disclosure procedures in relation to its labour performance standard, so that other workers did not suffer from inadequate or delayed compliance with the standard.
