Clear guidelines to ensure transparency and trust in NITO
NITO has adopted new guidelines for impartiality. The guidelines are intended to help ensure trust, transparency and orderly decision-making processes throughout the organisation – across levels and offices.
The Executive Board of NITO has adopted guidelines for impartiality on the basis of NITO's legislation. The guidelines apply when you represent NITO, and cover both work and elections throughout the organisation – from business groups and students to the executive board and congress-elected bodies.
Read also: Guidelines for impartiality in NITO
The purpose of the guidelines is to strengthen trust in NITO as an organisation and to facilitate open, transparent and fair processes. A clear framework for impartiality helps to prevent conflicts of interest, protect union representatives from undue pressure and ensure that decisions are made in the best interests of the organisation.
- Impartiality is fundamental to confidence in NITO. With these guidelines, we will have a common framework that strengthens transparency and orderliness at all levels," says Bjørn Tore Sund, chair of NITO's ethics committee.
Union representatives are responsible for assessing their own impartiality
The guidelines also clarify the responsibility of each employee representative to assess their own impartiality. In case of doubt, issues must be raised and discussed in the relevant body, so that impartiality assessments become a natural part of the decision-making basis.
"The guidelines make it easier for union representatives to know what is expected and how impartiality issues should be handled when they arise," says Sund.
By gathering and clarifying practice for impartiality, NITO wants to strengthen the common understanding of the circumstances that can lead to disqualification – and how such situations can be resolved in an orderly and transparent manner.
"By raising impartiality more clearly, we contribute to a culture where openness and integrity are a natural part of the decision-making processes at NITO," concludes Bjørn Tore Sund.
Read more: Overview of NITO's other guidelines, statutes and other rules that apply in the organisation