"Fair trade - fair work" - European conference of employee representatives in the cocoa- and chocolate industry

Networking and Sustainabilty in the cocoa- and chocolate industry.

More than 100 participants representing 21 trade unions in Europe and works councils from 14 European countries met in the convention center BZO in Oberjosbach to establish the trade union network "Cocoanet.EU".

This conference is part of the Cocoanet.EU project which is financially supported by the European Commission with a project duration of one year. Under the overall sponsorship of the European federation of Trade Union in the Food, Agriculture and Tourism sectors (EFFAT), the project will be coordinated by the German trade union NGG and is based on a partnership between trade unions from the Netherlands, Belgium, Austria, the UK, France and Poland.

Project partners will meet for further workshops end of February 2011 in Austria and in June 2011 in Belgium.

The conference had two main objectives:

to lay the foundation for a network of trade unions and works concils
to discuss sustainability in the sector.

Project partners developed a trade union definition of sustainability in the cocoa and chocolate industry. This definition covers the environmental, social and economic dimension in the entire cocoa value chain, reaching from the cocoabean in producing countries to the chocolate production in Europe. It was jointly elaborated, adapted as the Frankfurt Declaration at the end of the Cocoanet.EU conference and is available in various languages.

Further information on the conference

See following sections

More information on BZO.de