Last week saw two important campaigner statements that were highly distrustful and suspicious about business sector commitments and remarkably negative towards corporate social responsibility programmes and initiatives. Both referred to last year’s devastating factory fires in Pakistan and Bangladesh. The Clean Clothes Campaign CCC came out with a new booklet, and former International Labor Rights Forum ILRF Executive Director Bama Athreya expressed her opinions in a Huffington Post blog article.
Fatal Fashion is a Clean Clothes Campaign CCC publication that has been written together with SOMO, a research institute close to this Netherlands-based organisation. The booklet is not really a research report even if it contains much essential information on the two tragic factory fires and the follow up by buyers and different stakeholders. It is equally much a statement by the authors on how they would like to see the follow up.
It should be no surprise that global buyers are severely criticised in the CCC booklet, and there are surely valid reasons for that. Much of the factual criticism is correct, although a fundamental mistrust against business filters through also when some targeted companies have clearly shown that suppliers and agents have acted in ways which have been both unauthorised and hidden from the buyers.
To lay the blame for the fires on global buyers cannot be correct as the final responsibility is with factory owners and managers, and the government authorities. Another thing is then that the setup of these business relations requires serious attention and probably some very fundamental changes to lower or even remove the risk for a future tragedies like these taking place. It is also fair to ask buyers to show the necessary solidarity by contributing in substantial ways to compensating victims and their families. We know that this has nomally been done although there may be discussion and differing opinions about amounts and modes of support.
As so often is the case, generalisations and conclusions are regrettably drawn with a free hand. Faults and even wrong behaviour in individual cases and by individual companies are turned into sweeping allegations. This moves too much focus to accusations and the many concrete and serious suggestions for improving factory conditions don’t get the attention that they should.
Of course, the global supply chains that provide cheap goods for consumers in developed markets are fundamentally problematic and frequently unfair. There is, however, no rolling back of this international trading, that would not even be the right thing to demand. What we need to work for is that the economic participation of less developed regions and countries comes with a clear and strong dimension of human rights and social well-being.
Much effort has gone into convincing business that this must be a serious concern in all supply chain activities. Social campaigners have been instrumental in bringing about this thinking. Important contributions have been made within many companies themselves, large and small, where ethically motivated managers and workers can take pride in their achievements. What starts to be mainstream thinking among world brands and retailers – with all shortcomings that still exist – has not been there for long.
Initiatives such as Social Accountability International SAI which was founded in 1997 have played an incredibly important role in raising awareness and providing business with the tools to protect and defend human rights and social conditions in their supply chains. This engagement by SAI president Alice Tepper Marlin and the SA8000 people has actually been there much longer, with the Council on Economic Priorities (CEP) founded already in 1969. The tone that some campaigners are using when referring to this leading multistakeholder initiative, where also trade unionists participate, tells more about themselves than about the issues that they want to raise.
No other organisation has addressed the shortcomings of CSR initiatives and supply chain social auditing as seriously as SAI and Social Accountability Accreditation Services SAAS have recently done. To bluntly reject the importance of the changes that are already on their way, without presenting any alternatives, is not a credible approach.
I admit that I am concerned over how the tense labour relations in the United States affect the global scene as well. Bama Athreya, who used to lead the International Labor Rights Forum ILRF, wrote in a Huffington Post blog article last week :
” The numerous private monitoring and certification groups that have crowded this space in recent years need to get out of the way, and recognize that competing for brands’ business in Bangladesh will not help to solve the bigger challenges. They need to cede the space to the US government here. Consumer-facing advocacy groups need to provide consumers with information about which companies are following the leader, and which are refusing to play. “
Although it deals with the aftermath of the Pakistan and Bangladesh fire catastrophes, the pitch of this message cannot be misunderstood. Buying brands and retailers ” that have crowded this space in recent years need to get out of the way ” and make space for the U.S. Government and campaigner organisations to take care of the challenges.
It is interesting to note that neither CCC nor Ms Athreya pay much attention to the role of trade unions, which after all are the only legitimate representatives for workers when it comes to labour relations. If employers are removed from the scene to create space for governments and social campaigners, then also unions will lose an important part of their influence. This is not a new issue, there have always been some tension between advocacy and campaigner organisations, and trade unions, when these NGO’s have been tempted to take on union roles without being accountable to the workers.
There may be domestic reasons for referring to the U.S. Government, and of course it would be very positive if the Obama administration could give active and effective support for improving the factory fire safety situation in these and other countries.
We have good experiences of this from the time when President Bill Clinton’s Secretary of Labor Robert Reich committed the United States Government to helping end child labour in the production of footballs – soccer balls – in Pakistan’s Sialkot. Here it was UNI Global Union who asked for support, preparing for negotiations with the International Football Federation FIFA.
But still, suppliers and their management are the ones who need to make the concrete changes, and usually also change their approach to their workers. Without clear messages and often even pressure from the brands and retailers who buy and bring their products to the markets this will not happen.
Maybe the author is also unaware that brands and retailers are indeed cooperating when it comes to social supply chain conditions. This was among the main reasons for creating the Global Social Compliance Programme GSCP, and we also see it in the preparations for coordinated activities to address these fire safety issues.
Corporate social responsibility schemes and initiatives can never be a substitute for constructive and fair labour relations between employers and workers and their trade unions. Social audits can never play the role of freely negotiated collective agreements and supportive labour legislation, and proper government oversight. In fact, schemes and initiatives should even stronger than now encourage and promote the development of these internationally agreed ways of protecting workers human, economic and social rights.
There are important parts of the world where the employers and workers, for various reasons, have not been able to get together on these issues. Outside involvement – including a strong engagement of buying brands and retailers through their social responsibility approaches – continues to be needed.
Both global and national trade unions could make much more active use of the declared commitment of leading brands and retailers to require their suppliers to respect freedom of association and the right to collective bargaining. After all, these commitments are a result of a longstanding and continuing engagement by trade unionists in developing these codes, standards and activities.
Telling the global buyers that they are not serious and may as well forget codes, initiatives and capacity building activities among their suppliers would be irresponsible. I am sure that at the end of the day, only a small minority of the people engaged in campagn organisations would take this approach. That US-based SAI and its SA8000 Standard are now singled out also by some who continue their engamenet with often less stringent and more business dominated initiatives is surely related to domestic labour relations issues and not so much part of a broader campaign against CSR.
In a world where governments were unable to introduce even a modest social dimension into their world trade agreements it would be mistaken to think that they can now take over the responsibility. They can and even should increase their engagement, also to set a level playing field for business that requires and also allows for responsible behaviour, but voluntary activities will still remain the key element.
Cooperation is indeed necessary to achieve real change for the better. Business must accept to engage with trade unions and social campaigners, and these need to accept a pragmatic cooperation with business even when the situation at home may be difficult or hostile. To make disadvantaged supply chain workers and their families suffer from adversarial labour relations in developed countries is not acceptable.
Coming from the trade union movement myself, I cannot see any logic or benefit in rejecting voluntary commitments by global brands and retailers to contribute to the respect for human rights and decent working conditions in supplier workplaces. Correctly applied this would even help union organising efforts. In developed economies where trade unions are sufficiently strong and well established and where tripartite cooperation brings together governments and social partners, this business driven approach to labour relations is of course not needed and should not be applied.
It does not take long to see that an important aim of the CCC publication is to solicit participation and and funding for their 2011 fire safety project. This initiative which also ILRF and some other North American campaigners are part of and that some key Global Union Federations are supporting has failed to attract enough commitments from buying companies. Only German retailer Tchibo and US garment group PVH have signed the project agreement with these campaigners.
I would hope that some additional buying companies could find it possible to back up the campaigner driven Bangladesh fire safety project, to ensure a broad stakeholder participation and to lay the ground for a constructive cooperation and united front of the global community. It would not be good to allow a competitive situation emerge on the ground.
I cannot see any major differences between the 2011 project developed by social campaigners and the work programme that should soon emerge from the cooperation between buyer brands and retailers. If everyone would take a pragmatic approach to these challenges and lay aside ideological motives or possible second agendas, a broad cooperation should be easy to achieve.
I hope that IndustriALL, the Global Union Federation which represents the workers directly concerned, and which has stepped in forcefully on their behalf, can play a convening role in bringing about this joint action.
After the two devastating garment factory fires in Pakistan and Bangladesh it is clear that much of the immediate focus will be on worker safety, without losing sight of the need for other improvements as well. Many buyers themselves as well as social responsibility initiatives such as WRAP, SAI and BSCI have already stepped up their existing awareness and capacity building activities. Companies such as French Carrefour and Swedish H&M have been among those who have already done much concrete work in this field and whose experiences will surely be very useful to draw on.
Structural changes and improvements must follow as soon as possible to make the physical conditions at workplaces safe. This is one of the most important tasks for the buying brands and retailers that are already working together with GIZ, the German Development Angency, to develop concrete action.
The Clean Clothes Campaign and other involved campaigners should seriously consider whether it would not be useful to work together with buying brands and retailers and seek cooperation rather than conflict. The challenges in Bangladesh and Pakistan are of such a magnitude that only a tripartite cooperation in the countries themselves with concrete and broad support from the outside can make a real difference.
Finally – let us not forget that the national partners in Pakistan and Bangladesh – governments, suppliers, unions and other stakeholders – need to play a leading role in all of this. In Bangladesh, a tripartite cooperation has already been set up. This has to be possible also on the international level.