Lack of knowledge and skills is a major reason for many working life problems, also in global supply chains. It is clearly not the only reason, but perhaps more common and important than we often think. All of us who have concrete experience from labour relations know that adding to knowledge and skills usually has a positive effect on workplace attitudes, which helps to improve labour conditions and raise productivity.
The GSCP Workshop on Capacity Building which started in India today is a good example of how bringing together buying brands and retailers with their suppliers can promote respect for human rights and decent working conditions. There are many stakeholder organisation present as well, who are dedicated to human rights and social justice, including trade union representatives from IndustriALL Global Union.
Everyone may not always agree on how things could best be improved, but there should be a fair consensus about objectives, which invites to dialogue and cooperation.
When also commercial buying conditions take into account social standards, capacity building plays a central role in enabling employers and workers to set things right through mutual respect, dialogue and cooperation.
I participated myself in a regional GSCP country meeting in Shenzhen in China about a year ago, where it was the buyer companies who met to discuss these issues. What struck me as something very positive was the openness that these professional buyers showed to including social considerations in their supplier relations. I am not naive, we are only at a starting point and much will have to happen before the global trade systems support a fair treatment of workers and their families.
Of course I am partial as well. To be member of the GSCP Advisory Board would make no sense unless I supported the aims, objectives and work of this common CSR and environmental standards platform. More than that, I could not have involved myself in this work had it not been for the strong support of commerce trade unions from all over the world, when I was head of UNI Commerce Global Union. The unions understood that to defend and promote their rights, the supply chain workers needed the support of CSR schemes and initiatives. Of course, the final trade union aim is that employers and workers can engage in an organised social dialogue and collective agreement relationship, supported by effective government authorities and a developed labour legislation.
GSCP has now completed its basic toolkit which can be used by companies, CSR initiatives and schemes, and others, to establish and ensure correct human rights and social conditions in supply chains. All this material is freely available on the www.gscpnet.com website, an amazing resource for all those who want to approach these issues in a serious and professional way. They can be used for benchmarking, but also as inspiration and guidance for improvement. Through the GSCP Equivalence Process, companies and others can make sure that their approaches and work is compatible with the highest existing standards.
The GSCP Workshop in India shows the way that companies as well as codes, schemes and initiatives can move forward from social auditing to capacity building, and remediation. GSCP has made a major contribution to driving upward convergence of standards and mutual recognition of social audits. This should now make it possible to direct more attention and resources to where they can really make a difference – at the supplier workplaces. Hopefully the workshop will help to generate both further capacity building and the use of this added capacity for the benefit of supply chain workers who still so often toil under poor conditions.