If some still seriously think that the time for corporate social responsibility schemes is over, they should take a close look at BSCI, which in these days celebrates its tenth anniversary. Through its formidable convening power, this business driven initiative with a strong stakeholder participation has signed up already over 1,000 brands, retailers and other traders in concrete work for better supply chain conditions.
As Jan Eggert, Achim Lohrie and some others started to work on this Business Social Compliance Initiative ten years ago, there was much skepticism in both business and labour circles. Some brands and retailers saw this as a German ‘operation’, and many unions suspected foul intentions behind this employer action.
I admit that I was among those that looked with some suspicion at this process. However, my talks with Jan Eggert convinced me that the companies in the Foreign Trade Association FTA who were behind this process were serious, and that trade unions and other stakeholders should lend their support to it. This was also confirmed by my organisation UNI-Europa Commerce, who agreed that we engage ourselves in the BSCI Stakeholder Board. I am pleased that Fabrice Warneck of UNI-Europa Commerce continues to be a board member, which shows social responsibility for supply chain workers and is surely a good decision also for his members.
To link BSCI with Social Accountability International SAI and its SA8000 Social Standard was an important decision by the European brands and retailers. That gave credibility to the BSCI code and work, SAI being a respected multistakeholder organisation with its widely recognised and renowned SA8000 Social Standard.
Originally the intention was that companies committed to the BSCI code, which to some parts was lighter and less rigid to apply, would all end up fully implementing the more demanding SA8000. This has not really worked, probably also because of the almost explosive growth of BSCI. The aim has also been overtaken by the move of focus in the whole CSR community from codes and audits to capacity building and remediation. Here, BSCI has done a lot.
When the relation between SAI and BSCI needed to enter a more structured stage, some new problems came up. This was so particularly in SAI where opinions were split about going forward through a formal agreement. It was really all about whether the BSCI Code should need to include the right of supply chain workers to a living wage instead of – as it still does – talking about “legal minimum and/or industry standards”.
When we decided on this issue in the SAI Advisory Board, the union representation was split. I was in favour of an agreement with BSCI, which for me then represented an important group of companies where our unions and union members worked.
For the general secretary of the textile and garment workers international Neil Kearney the situation looked different, which I well understood. He saw the lack of a clear clause on a living wage as a major flaw which was weakening the position of the workers whom he represented. I had many and long discussions about this with him, we agreed that a living wage definition is necessary and essential, but had different views on whether this should lead to refusing the agreement with BSCI.
The multistakeholder Advisory Board of SAI finally voted in favour of a more formal cooperation with BSCI. This lead Neil Kearney to leave the board, reluctantly I know, also as I was sitting next to him at the meeting where this took place. It is good that he and his organisation did continue to work closely with SAI also after this.
There has been some public misrepresentation about why Neil and the textile workers left the SAI Advisory Board so I thought it useful to tell what really happened.
Perhaps the time now is indeed better for the BSCI to have another look at living wage issues. They are complicated for sure, but as the situation in Bangladesh shows, they must nevertheless be addressed.
IndustriALL Global Union deserves a lot of support for its work on behalf of the disadvantaged workers in the global supply chains and this is definitely one of the issues. We have seen that practical solutions are not always easy to find when many brands and retailers use the same factories. HM chief executive Karl-Johan Persson is one of the corporate leaders who have signaled preparedness to do something real here if the solutions can be found. BSCI could perhaps work with IndustriALL – and with the Global Social Compliance Programme GSCP to bring in a global dimension – to see how non-competitive improvements could be made while preserving a level playing field in the industry and between producer countries.
It would of course be easy to criticise both BSCI and other CSR initiatives for all what they have failed to achieve, and in fact many campaigners do this. Although not as aggressive as the US based campaigner attacks on SAI, BSCI has received its fair share of campaigner criticism as have all voluntary schemes and initiatives. As long as the criticism is honest and concrete and aims at improving conditions, it should be welcomed. Shareholder and other corporate interests often weigh in the other direction, so this push is definitely needed however unfair and irritating it may feel at times.
Looking at BSCI, one should reflect whether the Bangladesh building and fire safety alliance would ever have taken off unless BSCI had prepared the ground by mainstreaming supply chain social responsibility in European commerce. Probably not, as it would have been much more difficult for companies to find common ground and a concrete approach.
When IndustriALL and other Global Union Federations invited buyers to sign up, the large brands and retailers had already worked out an advanced project concept. This was initiated within the Global Social Compliance Programme GSCP already in September last year, on my suggestion after the devastating Ali Enterprise fire in Pakistan, and a project had been drafted in cooperation with the German development agency GIZ. Thus, a common view could be found, which was good, as was the cooperation between the social partners. It is regrettable that the issue of legal litigation was allowed to become an insurmountable obstacle for most US companies to join, which lead them to approach the same tasks through their own project. Without BSCI, we could have seen perhaps different but still similarly important complications in Europe as well.
Like for all initiatives, the world after the Pakistan and Bangladesh catastrophes probably looks different for the people in BSCI than what it used to. I can see that BSCI – as well as SAI – has already addressed some issues where improvements are urgently needed. Subcontracting social audits are restricted or even forbidden and controls are stricter. This is going in the right direction, and I am sure that other changes will follow.
I have made some suggestions myself in SAI, where I am a Board of Directors member, as part of the ongoing revision of the SA8000 Standard. These include changing the Certifications. Instead of just receiving an SA8000 Certificate after a successful audit procedure, a workplace should get a scorecard that gives more information about the conditions in key areas and also tells where improvements must still be made.
The workers have to have a more important role in helping to monitor workplace conditions, which would normally be done through organising in trade unions and entering into a structures social dialogue with the employer. However, as long as freedom of association is respected, it is up to the workers themselves to form or join a union if they want to. Even if the workers would choose not to organise, arrangements can and should be made for worker engagement.
It should be made very clear what a social audit system is able to do, and what not. Construction safety and similar issues are outside this scope and this has to be clearly spoken out. A more detailed score card type of certification – when certifications are used – helps also to achieve this clarity.
The whole audit process requires more transparency. This is also a question that BSCI, SAI, GSCP and other influential partners in the CSR community need to look at, to find a common and uniform solution. All suppliers may not like this, but they just need to adapt to the inevitable.
When BSCI celebrates its first ten years in Brussels this coming Tuesday and Wednesday, Jan Eggert, Lorenz Berzau, Olga Orozco and the whole team have all reason to be proud of the results that they have achieved. Together with UK-based ETI and the French large retailer group, BSCI has made corporate social responsibility in supply chains into a mainstream and core concern for Europe’s multinationals and other traders. Acknowledging that very much is still left to do, conditions in supply chains would be worse if BSCI would not have existed.
