Chapter 11 Trade Unions and Social Dialogue: A Challenge for Diversity Management

The aim of this chapter is to take stock of the aspect of the social concertation in the framework of policies of diversity management. It rests in particular on the work of a commission created by the AFMD (French Association of Diversity Managers), in partnership with ORSE (a French Societal Observatory). The commission has involved several larges French companies and organised meetings between the representatives of the different employers’ and workers’ organisations. Another source is the numerous actions led by the Labour Unions in Belgium in the framework of the Consortium Diversité Wallonie, which exists since 2007. This study tries to remind some objectives of social concertation in regards to policies of diversity management, to take stock of the legal constraints on concertation in regards to particular targets, to show the multiple conceptions of this notion of diversity management among social partners, to give an overview of the content of the agreements, and to present the steps of a social concertation sensible to diversity.