Avainsana: SA8000

Julkaistu

Ending employer repression of Bangladesh garment workers is a common task for buyers and unions

When large parts of the world were celebrating their year-end holidays, the Bangladesh garment manufacturers went on offensive against their workers. Over 1,600 lost their jobs and production at numerous facilities was halted as a repressive lock-out measure while several union leaders and worker activists were detained by police or driven into hiding. This ended strike action for a substantial rise to the country’s sub-standard 68 US Dollar monthly minimum wage.

At European sustainability conferences the Bangladesh Garment Manufacturers and Exporters Association BGMEA has liked to present itself as a modern employers’ association, respecting workers’ rights, including freedom of association. The picture has now been shattered by mass dismissals and police repression taking the place of constructive negotiations and social dialogue.

This has not necessarily been a surprise. We should not cheat ourselves by believing that fundamental changes in working life attitudes could appear over night in problematic producer countries. Respect for human rights at work grows slowly, at its best. For many years to come we will need outside involvement and pressure to develop and secure decent labour conditions. Trade regulations and socially responsible buyer policies remain the main tools for this.

Building and fire safety programmes are not enough

The building and fire safety programmes that were imposed on the industry after the Rana Plaza disaster have already improved numerous factory workplaces. This is an important achievement by both the European-dominated Accord and the US-based Alliance. Regrettably, a common project could not be reached.

Although workers’ and trade union rights are part of their agendas – particularly so within the Accord – their core tasks do not cover overall labour conditions. This is the role of other projects such as the Bangladesh Sustainability Compact  which brings together the European Union, the United States ( we will see then what happens with Donald Trump in the lead in Washington DC ) , Canada, the ILO and Bangladesh itself. It is complemented by the Decent Work in Bangladesh and the Better Work Bangladesh programmes, as well as by many other initiatives and activities.

Between 2013 and 2015, the Bangladesh Government put in place improved legislation on guarantee freedom of association, supported by the International Labour Organisation ILO. There are also national tripartite consultation mechanisms. Still, it would be be unrealistic to think that labour problems are solved when laws and regulations are updated and improved. There must also be a capacity and political will to apply the new principles. While resources could be built up reasonably fast, changes to social cultures and attitudes take much longer.

Buyers share the responsibility to act

International buyer brands and retailers sourcing or producing in Bangladesh cannot just close their eyes for what is happening now. The wage raise numbers can and should of course be discussed locally, but it is clear that the official minimum wage is seriously below what is acceptable for living costs. While it may not be the role of buyer corporations to involve themselves directly in wage negotiations, they do have a responsibility to intervene if freedom of association and the effective right to collective bargaining are violated. Labour conflicts should be settled in negotiations, not by police intervention and repression.

All serious social sustainability codes and standards require suppliers to pay wages that cover basic living costs and provide for some discretionary expenses. Some call it a living wage, some don’t, but it is always there. This is the time, if ever, for buyers to activate this and to get involved in  suitable ways.

Instead of deducting from the importance of sustainability, the rise of populism in buyer countries may add to it. There is a strong and forceful counter-reaction bringing people together in  new ways. Leading brands and buyers should not lose sight of the consumer powers of these people whose consciousness is growing as they engage in a fight for human and democratic values. Supply chain condition will continue to be in the public eye however government policies may change. Businesses need to overcome the all too common emotional and ideological aversions against working with trade unions on supply chain issues and accept that social  dialogue and cooperation builds a positive and even necessary engagement and stability.

Improved supply chain cooperation needed between business and trade unions

Also many global unions and non-governmental organisations could do some rethinking. Instead of attacking the sustainability schemes and initiatives they should be engaged to help bring about real and positive change. Without initiatives such as BSCI, SAI and its SA8000 Standard, WRAP, Fairtrade and others, control and remediation activities on the ground would be really thin. The social auditing industry which recently launched and important development effort through APSCA – the Association of Professional Social Compliance Auditors – will continue to play an essential role in making sustainable development possible.

On their own, unions and NGOs will not be able to generate real improvements, in an increasing unsympathetic world where hard business values and right-wing  populism continue to gain ground also among decision-makers. This is the time for pragmatic and mutually rewarding supply chain alliances, however conflicting the interests may be on other arenas.

Julkaistu

Serious about supply chain sustainability? Business, unions and advocacy organisations need to work together

To promote better labour conditions in global supply chains we need effective and sincere public-private cooperation in consumer countries. We need socially responsible buyer companies willing to invest in supply chain conditions. We need trade unions and civil society organisations that have set their priorities right and put supply chain workers’ interests first.

Why do we have so much suspicion and conflict between those who should be driving positive supply chain change together, as main private sector partners?

Relations have deteriorated

Global supply chain relations have indeed deteriorated during a number of years. Where joint sustainability approaches used to play the major tole we now see new alliances between global unions and labour advocacy organisations. Businesses tend to go more on their own than before, and there is a much weaker trade union participation in voluntary schemes and initiatives.

Labour relations are now more adversarial and the political climate harder than before the economic crisis hit. Instead of sharing the added value created by growth, labour partners fight over who will pay the costs of shrinking economies. Workers are carrying an unreasonably heavy burden through unemployment and dwindling standards. Income differences are bigger than ever and political polarization continues to generate conflicts and instability.

The International Labour Conference in June sent conflicting signals on supply chains. Employer organisations started by doing their best to deny that there would be governance issues needing to be tackled. Global trade unions and their NGO allies again saw nothing good in voluntary initiatives, questioned the sincerity of buyers and did not hide their preference for legislation that would impose rules and sanctions on them. Much of this was normal ILO tactics, for sure, but there is also a troubling reality behind.

An adversarial start was finally turned into agreement to continue discussions, with much of the credit going to the International Labour Office and ILO Director-General Guy Ryder.

Why are unions and campaigners against voluntary initiatives?

I can well see many reasons why global unions question voluntary multi-stakeholder and business driven social sustainability initiatives. Some criticism is fair enough, other reflections are linked more to trade union needs and ambitions. It is good to remember that corporate social responsibility itself is something suspicious in broad union circles. Business is not at all too innocent in this respect, having too often used CSR as a vehicle to avoid trade union recognition and collective agreements.

Many unions and advocacy NGOs are unhappy with what they see as a slow pace or even absence of improvements in supply chain labour conditions. They genuinely believe that voluntary initiatives have failed to change overall supply chain realities. This is why they call for more legal regulations and accountability.

These views are good to take seriously.

Brands and retailers have often dragged their feet and failed to act on poor working conditions in their supply chains. They ignored their due diligence obligations which of course existed far before the UN Guiding Principles for Business and Human Rights made them formal. For sure, there were brands and retailers that understood this and really tried to do something concrete, but there were also very many who did not.

Unfair to accuse initiatives for poor supply chain labour conditions

I share much of this union and civil society disappointment over an all too slow slow pace of change. The enormity of the task is a contributing factor, but also a bad excuse for not investing more resources and effort. Still, full credit should be given to the many brands and retailers who are very actively working on these challenges.

It is both unfair and professional to criticize the sustainability schemes and initiatives for this, or social compliance auditors. Here we often find the actors who have the strongest and most concrete commitment to decent conditions in supplier industries and who are trying to do something real.

To promote and support organising and collective agreements in producer countries is a legitimate activity for any trade union. At the end, working conditions and labour relations must be managed locally, respecting universal global norms. This requires a social dialogue between mutually respectful partners who negotiate collective agreements. They should preferably be concluded on an industry level, applied and enforced with effective government support. The IndustriAll-driven ACT project together with a number of buying brands in Cambodia is an interesting pilot for such approaches.

Many unions and advocacy organisations make a mistake when they try to throw out voluntary multi-stakeholder or business driven schemes and initiatives. There is no way that unions and social advocacy organisations could fill the gap if brands and retailers were to abandon their own programmes and activities. It is more than unlikely that most retailers and brands, and governments, would agree to substitute this work with legislation and sanctions. I also fail to see the logic in unionists and labour advocates demanding brands and retailers to respect their due diligence obligations if they are at the same time doing their best to discredit serious efforts. Ending the voluntary involvement of buying companies could spell disaster for workers in many supplier industries and countries.

The multi-stakeholder Bangladesh Fire and Safety Accord has achieved many things and I do support it of course, but we should also remember that even together with the business-driven Alliance it covers only a part of labour conditions, albeit an important one. The whole field of human rights and sustainability at work is very much broader. The problems encountered when trying to secure freedom of association within these projects send a message that mainstreaming their principles would be an extremely complicated and long process, if not even politically impossible.

Both legislation and voluntary schemes are needed

We will continue to need all stakeholders on the stage, both public and private, employers and unions. Voluntary schemes and initiatives are an important tool for this. For sure there needs to be more legally binding norms as well. National governments and the international community need tools to set minimum acceptable standards and at the same time a level playing field which would also protect serious enterprises against social dumping and unfair competition. How this could be done without creating disadvantages in the countries where governments take their obligations seriously, and without scaring buyers away from the least developed producer countries, remain to be seen.

As a result of awareness building, where multi-stakeholder and business driven voluntary initiatives have played the central role, supply chain conditions cannot be ignored by business anymore. They are now part of core corporate issues and concerns. Buyer-driven capacity building and remediation activities abound and suppliers have to pay more attention to their labour conditions.

This does not mean that voluntary initiatives should not improve their performance – in fact they are constantly doing this. I take an example which I know very well, Social Accountability International SAI. With their Social Fingerprint and Ten Squared programmes and an impressive work to improve SA8000 social audit reliability, the new young SAI leadership does indeed merit a very strong support from business, unions and other stakeholders. This is a good example of linking social auditing and workplace certification to capacity building and remediation.

The SA8000 Social Standard is still the strongest instrument to define and promote human rights at work and decent working conditions. In today’s social climate it would not be possible to reach a common understanding between the labour partners on levels as high as those in SA8000. Being one of the authors of the standard-setting GSCP Reference Code I can also vouch for the SA8000 having been one of the main resources in that work. SAI – as well at the Social Accountability Accreditation Services SAAS – has been an important source of knowledge and experience while we were working on the whole GSCP toolbox, with its guidelines and advisories for all parts of sustainability activities.

Campaigning against social auditing hurts workers and is not professional

Social audits play an important role when buying brands and retailers exercise their supply chain due diligence. Being visible and commercially managed parts of voluntary initiatives both auditors and auditing firms have been a frequent target for campaigns and criticism. Individual shortcomings and mismanagement cases have been generalized to question the credibility of the whole activity and industry. This is both unfair and incorrect towards the numerous serious and highly skilled enterprises and individual auditors who are producing important services for supply chain businesses and their workers. Without them, due diligence would be impossible. It is not professional to allow criticism against globalization and mistrust against large private enterprises influence the attitudes to social auditing.

Most social auditing takes place outside the public eye and there are indeed many reasons for this. Confidentiality rules are equally important to protect workers as their supplier employers. Without these rules it would often be impossible to get a correct picture of conditions.

Demands for more transparency in  global supply chains and buyers’ supplier relations will surely bring some changes to sustainability audits. This has to be done without violating the necessary confidentiality. The auditing industry itself can benefit from this. The new Association of Professional Social Compliance Auditors APSCA where I am now a member of the Stakeholder Board will have to address this issue.

We need respect and new cooperation between supply chain players

We should move to new convergence within global supply chain sustainability work and engage both public and private partners in joint efforts. We do need to accept and support a broad specter of action and initiatives, the task is far too big to successfully approach otherwise. This we owe to the workers and their families as well as to the businesses and entrepreneurs in producer countries. Relations at home in advanced consumer countries cannot be allowed to undermine effective joint efforts but must be kept separate. The Global Social Compliance Programme GSCP has proved that this can be done and a similar message comes from Germany’s Textile Alliance.

Genuine engagement and responsibility, mutual respect by and for all participants, and honest intentions to build pragmatic and effective partnership are some of the elements that are now needed.

Julkaistu

Governments, business and stakeholders need to work together for supply chain sustainability

Supply chain social responsibility is on the move this spring. The tripartite ILO International Labour Conference will be a high point with governments, employers and trade unions debating how best to secure human rights and promote decent work. Countries around the world are following up on the UN Guiding Principles for Business and Human Rights, setting their own National Action Plans. Many sustainability schemes and initiatives are developing and stepping up their own work. The professional social auditors have established their own organisation APSCA to secure and develop audit quality.

It is important to ensure that the activities and programmes are efficient and help bring about positive change. The attention to policy and structures should not move away the focus from real and concrete efforts to improve labour conditions. Taking care of the tools and using them effectively should complement each other, not compete about our attention.

We need broad engagement for sustainable supply chains

Public-private cooperation is an important element of any effective sustainability efforts, also in consumer countries that work on their own social and environmental responsibilities in global supply chains.

Governments need to influence supplier countries to play an active role in ensuring human rights and decent working conditions. They must also set rules for buyer companies and other supply chain participants to follow. Bringing together business and stakeholders around joint objectives and tasks, such as Germany is doing in its textile alliance – – Bündnis für nachhaltige Textilien – is equally essential.

Buyer brands and retailers can and must use their commercial power and know-how to require and help their business partners to behave responsibly. Carefully designed buying practices and agreements can both encourage and enable this.

Trade unions and non-governmental organisations are important partners in this work, enabling and helping workers to participate in setting labour conditions.

GSCP has created a solid base for convergence and cooperation

The Global Social Compliance Programme GSCP has done much to help brands and retailers translate their sustainability commitments to concrete action. The GSCP Reference Code and a collection of sustainability tools now form a solid base for effective sustainability engagement. They were all created through a multi-stakeholder process and aim at securing full respect for universal human rights. Furthermore, they set minimum requirements for decent working and employment conditions, based on ILO International Labour Conventions. Key toolbox elements deal with sustainability management systems, both for suppliers and for buyer companies. Others cover all aspects of social auditing and auditor competence, setting minimum standards that should ensure reliable audits.

GSCP was created to drive an upward convergence of social responsibility codes and standards, based on the ambitious reference code and the application guidelines in the toolbox. This would enable mutual recognition of social audit results and help direct more resources to capacity building and remediation at supplier workplaces. The GSCP equivalence process was developed for the analysis and benchmarking that serves this process.

This important initiative by many of the world’s largest brands and retailers has had a much broader impact than only driving its core convergence objective. We have seen a remarkable growth of both awareness and engagement in the business community with activities levels stepped up across many industries. A good and welcome example is the commitment made by the Consumer Goods Forum CGF to play an active role in working for the UN Sustainable Development Goals SDG’s.

The first concrete joint measure by the CGF companies will be launching of an ambitious and welcome project to eliminate forced labour from their supply chains. This will also be reflected in the work of GSCP now that the Reference Code, toolbox and equivalence process are in place. This does not mean that other parts of the Code would be neglected, they will continue to be as important as ever on the agendas and programmes of the individual brands and retailers.

Sustainability schemes and initiatives update their own approaches

Buyers need to be actively engaged if we really want to secure human rights and decent working conditions in global supply chains. Corporate social responsibility CSR schemes and initiatives can contribute to the quality and efficiency of this engagement. To achieve this, both transparency and full civil society engagement are needed.

There have been big changes and efficiency boosts also on the standard and code application side. As an example, Social Accountability Accreditation Services SAAS has further increased the reliability of the already demanding SA8000 Social Standard. The sustainability auditing industry itself has established a new organisation to safeguard audit quality and reliability. The Association for Professional Social Compliance Auditors (APSCA) is an important initiative and I was happy to accept an invitation to join their Stakeholder Board.

Also other sustainability programmes such as Social Accountability International SAI and the Business Social Compliance Initiative BSCI have updated their codes or standards. They have continued to add more emphasis on remediation and capacity building and have developed new innovative approaches for this. Others, such as the Better Cotton Initiative BCI and the Global Organic Textile Standard GOTS are also working on code and standard revisions and the Fairtrade movement has just released a new textile standard.

Improvements in conditions are the test for schemes and initiatives

To improve the instruments is of course not enough. Supply chain workers are still too often working under sub-standard conditions and paid far below what is needed for a decent life. Voices that reject voluntary business initiatives and call for far reaching legislation instead will grow stronger unless concrete and significant improvements at supplier workplaces are made at a faster pace.

There is today a genuine disappointment over the slowness or lack of visible improvements in labour and social conditions in global supply chains. These sentiments go also beyond the many advocacy organisations and trade unions that are actively voicing their frustrations.

The best way for the business community to respond is to step up their contributions to bring about real improvements of human rights and labour conditions in the supply chain. The new Consumer Goods Forum CGF forced labour initiative is a good example of this and can lead to substantial positive change. This is a sign of success also for the patient work done by GSCP, to build awareness and drive convergence in the sustainability work of global buyers. The challenge is now to use the significant commercial power of these world class companies to translate this commitment into real action. GSCP will have an important role in making this possible, as will also cooperating sustainability schemes and initiatives.

Sustainability initiatives and mainstream labour relations can complement each other

The best approach to improve labour conditions includes organised social partners, effectively applied labour legislation, collective agreements and an efficient labour inspection system. As this is still a distant dream in large parts of the world also other approaches are needed. The UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights is a manifestation of this.

Voluntary schemes and initiatives are there also to help buying brands and retailers respect their obligations. The UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights could hardly be applied without these business-driven or multi-stakeholder programmes which build on social auditing and focus on remediation and capacity building.

We should remember that all leading schemes demand full respect for freedom of association and the right to collective bargaining. Also unions and advocacy organisations could and should use this for supporting organising efforts.

Colder labour relations climate hurts supply chain cooperation

Buying brands and retailers are targeted also without valid reasons and the CSR concept itself is put in question. Often this relates to anti-globalisation drives and is more general and political than referring to concrete supply chain issues. It does also reflect an overall polarisation of opinions and a deterioration of labour relations where social partnership gives way for the struggle over dwindling resources.

Recession pitches business and unions against each other. Having negotiated how the fruits of growth are shared, capital and labour are now engaged in a combat over who shoulders losses. High unemployment and deteriorating social services add to conflicts. Unions are pushed into defence by business circles and their political supporters who want to get rid of collective agreements and legal regulations that are seen as restrictive.

Supply chain sustainability cooperation is clearly affected by this lack of confidence.

Conflicts at home is not an excuse to forget joint obligations

The commercial workers’ trade unions engaged themselves for improving supply chain conditions during the time that I was in charge of UNI Commerce Global Union. We joined the advisory and stakeholder boards of initiatives such as Social Accountability International SAI, the Business Social Compliance Initiative BSCI and the Global Social Compliance Programme GSCP.

These decisions were not made without thorough considerations. Many of the large retailers that we came to work with were formidable opponents in their own employer roles. What made us sign up to these initiatives was the conviction that our own conflicts should not be played out at the expense of the already hard pressed and badly treated supply chain workers and their families.

This was a very mature and responsible stance by the large commerce trade unions around the world that were our members. Something of the same spirit would be needed also today. This would require also many buyer brands and retailers to take a more positive stance to involving workers and their unions in supply chain sustainability work.

Julkaistu

Global Supply Chain Leaders GSCP and SAI Position Themselves in Changing Landscape

Many things are moving in the social sustainability landscape this spring, but will they contribute to real improvement for working families world-wide? This question is relevant also for four international events during the next few weeks that I am preparing for. They all deal with global supply chains, but from very different angles.

The Global Social Compliance Programme GSCP meets in Berlin at the end of the month, both for its own meeting and for a multi-stakeholder conference arranged together with the German Government. Later in the week, the Advisory Board of Social Accountability International SAI (SA8000) meets for three days in Florence, Italy. After the First of May weekend, Germany’s multi-stakeholder Textile Alliance (Textilbündnis) convenes a working meeting in Frankfurt a.M. to continue preparing its principles and work programme, also hosted by the Federal Government.

GSCP Brings Leading Brands and Retailers to Sustainability Work

The Global Social Compliance Programme GSCP is first in line with a members’ meeting in Berlin at the end of the month. This initiative represents many of the worlds largest brands and retailers and has been driving convergence in a very much split corporate responsibility landscape. Its work builds on a reference code and a number of tools that set high standards and provide guidance for sustainability work. An intention is that global supply chain actors could recognise each others’ social audit results and cooperate more actively in the important remediation and capacity building.

GSCP is now pretty much done with creating this foundation and is increasingly trying to support and promote real change for the better. Much attention is still given to developing management systems for social and environmental sustainability, both in supplier and buyer companies. Monitoring conditions and their development through social and environmental auditing continues to be an important and necessary pillar for these activities.

Public – Private Cooperation Supports Sustainable Development Goals

A major GSCP achievement has been to raise the sustainability awareness of the Consumer Goods Forum CGF and its members. These companies are among the largest in the world and can play a critically important role for global supply chain sustainability.

The second event does in fact reflect these developments. In a letter last summer to the German G7 Presidency, the CGF member companies committed themselves to participate in the world-wide work for the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDG). This promise is now followed up at an international Conference arranged in Berlin with the Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development BMZ, directly following the GSCP meeting.

Action on Forced Labour Opens Concrete Cooperation

The concrete human rights and sustainability commitment chosen by the CGF brands and retailers for joint action is to remove all forced labour from their supply chains. This does not mean that the other human and workers’ rights would be left out. The obligation to apply the UN Guiding Principles for Business and Human Rights is still on the agenda even if the particular issue of forced labour has been singled out as a specific aim.

To support the credibility of the entire CSR field, these large companies should now say clearly what they intend to do and deliver substantial results reasonably fast. Work on this is in fact going on, involving also GSCP.

Important resources must also be allocated to define the major problem areas and address the issues effectively. Walking away from suppliers who cannot prove that their own supply chains are not clean will not be an alternative. Forced labour is found from high seas fishing and cotton growing to mining and manufacturing, all areas that need to be addressed. A special challenge will be to go deeper down in the supply chains than to the final suppliers only. This has not been the strong point of most sustainability schemes and initiatives and will need particular attention.

I have been a member of the Advisory Board of GSCP since the beginning of this initiative. During these years I have seen how many of the large buyer companies have acted effectively in support of workers’ rights in their supply chains. There have been both interesting and innovative approaches to this which would have merited much more public attention. I have no doubts that – with a serious engagement – we will see much of these also in the activities against forced labour.

Recognising the importance of this CSR work and the social audit based supply chain engagement of buyer companies can contribute significantly to improving conditions for the working families concerned. This does not mean that we can be complacent. Criticism is important as it helps to push things forward, but it also needs to recognise the importance of the engagement and participation of global brands and retailers. The BMZ Berlin Conference will hopefully contribute to a broader coalition building and cooperation instead of an often ideologically influenced negativism against business driven action.

Social Accountability International SAI Continues as Innovative Leader in Sustainability Field

Social Accountability International SAI meets immediately after this for its Advisory Board meeting. The three day event hosted by Gucci in Florence, Italy is also the starting point for a new stage of the organisation’s development. With a new President and CEO Jane Hwang and a new President of the Board of Directors Dan Henkle, SAI is well prepared to secure a leading role as an innovative and highly respected multi-stakeholder initiative. The SA8000 Social Standard and the detailed application guidelines make this into a unique and recognised benchmark for best sustainability practice.

I have had the privilege of working with SAI and its founder and President Alice Tepper Marlin over many years, both in the Board of Directors and the Advisory Board. This is where I have learned what sustainability and social responsibility in global supply chains really means. Alice and her team, where also Jane Hwang has played an important role, have built up a solid organisation which is well positioned to meet today’s challenges and make use of the opportunities to effectively promote human rights at work.

Julkaistu

Law or Codes – Germany Works on Business and Human Rights Plan


Germany would be a good role model for supply chain cooperation between business and unions. Of course there are major disagreements but this does not stop the social partners from taking joint responsibilities for human rights at work in producer countries. This picture is from the last of three multi-stakeholder Conferences arranged in 2015 by Development Ministry BMZ, to prepare the German National Action Plan for implementing the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights.

Will brands, retailers and other buying companies voluntarily respect human rights in their global supply chains? Are voluntary commitments reliable, or do we need legislation? Can consumer country laws help improve working life in producer regions?

These questions were very much present when German businesses and stakeholders met recently for a third and final conference in the run-up to a National Action Plan for implementing the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights.  Next step will be drafting a proposal to be discussed with all stakeholders, beginning early next year.

How will Germany build a balance between civil society expectations and business preparedness? All of us who are engaged in promoting supply chain responsibility are surely waiting to see how the country will apply the business part of the UN Guiding Principles – “Protect, Respect and Remedy”.

Germany’s National Action Plan will influence also other countries. Europe’s biggest economy is actively promoting sustainability in global supply chains. We have seen this clearly during its 2015 G7 Presidency when the country has put business and human rights on the leading industrialised countries’ common agenda.

Business concerned over unwanted negative effects

In Berlin, business representatives and social advocacy organisations were far from each other when speaking about voluntary initiatives and binding legislation.

Most business representatives preferred voluntary action as the best way to apply the due diligence required by the UN Guiding Principles. They were concerned that legislation and possible sanctions could lead many buyers to leave sensitive supplier countries and regions when they should stay and help improve conditions. If Germany would introduce more obligations for buyer companies than those of competing countries it would put the country’s business sector at a clear disadvantage, it was said.

Corporate speakers questioned whether small and medium enterprises really have the knowledge and capacity to deal with new regulations.

Business is not a uniform group but consists of companies on very different levels when it comes to sustainability issues. For ‘the best in class’, even a demanding National Action Plan would bring little change as their voluntary approaches already go much further.

This has been all too slow. Fully understanding that changes take time there should already be major improvements in the big picture.

Sub-standard wages and uncontrolled excessive working hours remain the reality in many parts of the supply chains. There is less child labour, but still too much. Forced labour continues to be a problem in some industries and regions, and freedom of association is frequently ignored. Farming is a weak area for many schemes and initiatives.

If buying companies and other businesses want to be credible when pushing for voluntary due diligence approaches they need to show more concrete results, on all fundamental human and workers’ rights issues.

Unions question CSR effectiveness 

Global unions have a more negative attitude towards voluntary corporate social responsibility initiatives than before. They say that there have been little if any results from corporate social responsibility programmes. This has driven them to close alliances with social advocacy organisations.

Deteriorating labour relations has a negative influence on supply chain cooperation. Collective bargaining has turned into a defensive union struggle as new wealth to share in negotiations is not generated anymore. Social dialogue suffers and aggressive campaigning has increased.

Trade unions do have a point when they criticise brands and retailers for largely ignoring freedom of association in supply chains. Many buyers demand that suppliers comply with child labour, forced labour and anti-discrimination rules but are quick to leave trade union rights out. This can give suppliers the impression of having a free hand to resist organising efforts. Many companies are also reluctant to engage in joint projects with worker organisations, although here the distrust is often mutual.

Unions and advocacy organisations are calling for binding legislation in consumer countries, as part of the National Action Plans. This would include the right to initiate collective legal proceedings, something like the U.S. class action lawsuits. They also call for legal sanctions against companies in these countries if they ignore their due diligence obligations.

The role of social standards and codes

Social standard and codes will continue to be important tools, as will social auditing. Collective bargaining and social dialogue between employers and workers’ trade unions can often not replace these functions.  There are no structured labour relations in many countries and regions, and all governments do not effectively guarantee decent conditions. This will continue into the foreseeable future. The aim must be that labour conditions are eventually set by local partners, through mainstream tripartite procedures. Also corporate responsibility initiatives and activities must be geared in this direction.

Environmental and other initiatives pay increasing attention to human rights and labour conditions. They are responding to business demands but also protecting their own quality and reliability. The Global Organic Textile Standard GOTS where I am engaged certifies organic textiles through a highly demanding process. The same serious and demanding approach applies to human rights and labour conditions. Many others are doing the same which does not mean their standards or codes or other tools would be as detailed as those of specialised social responsibility initiatives. There is in fact already much cooperation around capacity building, training and other activities, as well as in auditor accreditation. The National Action Plans will surely intensify this cooperation.

Whether a scheme or initiative calls itself multi-stakeholder or business driven does not have to make a big difference. Important is that they are serious, demanding and committed and produce results. Social Accountability International SAI, the Ethical Trading Initiative ETI, the Business Social Compliance Initiative BSCI, the Fair Labor Association FLA and the Fair Wear Foundation FWF are examples of cross-industrial initiatives which have set their standards and ambitions high, and which are working actively with remediation programmes. The Fairtrade movement has a similar approach in its own niches of the global economy.

None of these initiatives can guarantee that every workplace audit produces absolutely reliable results, but as verifying and certifying demands and social auditors’ skills grow, also reliability increases.

More than voluntary, less than legislation?

I would expect an approach by the Berlin government that goes further than only demanding voluntary commitments by businesses to apply due diligence in global supply chains. This would not necessarily mean that sweeping legal responsibilities or tight sanctions for buying brands and retailers would be put in place.

A National Action Plan is of course exactly what it is called, an action plan, not legislation. It is more about the process towards more responsible business practices than about a set end result.

A solution is surely now sought that meets at least part of the civil society expectations while protecting and promoting German business interests. Responsible politicians and government agencies will have a difficult task as there seems to be a mutual lack of confidence especially between business organisations and social advocacy movements. When political positioning now is giving way to concrete drafting, Germany’s influential trade unions could well play a constructive role in looking for balanced and realistic compromises.

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I represented the Global Organic Textile Standard GOTS at the meeting in Berlin. Human rights and labour conditions are important concerns for this organisation which is engaged in updating its certification standard. Above all, training and capacity building ‘on the ground’ is developed and growing.

This article does not express the views of GOTS and I do not write it as a GOTS representative.  These are my personal reflections and opinions, of course influenced by my background in the global trade union movement and my very active board engagements in the Global Social Compliance Programme GSCP and Social Accountability International SAI,which owns the SA8000 Social Standard.

Julkaistu

Germany’s G7 social supply chain agenda calls for more positive business and union attitudes

UN - Palais Wilson in Geneva
Palais Wilson in Geneva is the UN human rights headquarters. The UN Guiding Principles for Business and Human Rights created a solid basis on which Germany’s G7 Presidency can now try to launch a new and more socially responsible approach to global supply chains. Geneva is also the home of the global social dialogue and tripartite cooperation at the International Labour Organisation ILO. Governments and the social partners need to see to it that they use the opportunity that they now have thanks to the German government and bring justice and humanity to the people who produce much of what the more well to do parts of the world consume.

The German Presidency of the G7 Group of leading industrialised countries deserves much appreciation for their activity in supporting human rights and better labour conditions in global supply chains. The Summit on Sunday and Monday at Schloss Elmau in Bavaria could set conditions that drive real improvements in conditions which still are unacceptably bad in many producing countries. At a G7 Conference earlier this spring in Berlin, where I participated on behalf of the Global Organic Textile Standard GOTS, the German development and labour ministers Gerd Müller and Andrea Nahles made their country’s commitment to improve supply chain conditions very clear. This has been repeatedly confirmed by Chancellor Angela Merkel herself in the run up to this weekend’s G7 Summit.

The obligation to ensure proper living and labour conditions for supply chain workers and their families is of course with the national governments, and the employers directly concerned. This does not mean that the international community would be free of responsibility and lack influence. The UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights are quite clear about this, both when it comes to government and business.

As labour conditions in general, the basic protection of supply chain workers should be set through legislation. This comprises the universal human rights conventions and includes the fundamental rights as defined in the ILO Declaration on Fundamental Principles and Rights at Woirk and its Core Conventions which forbid child labour, forced labour and discrimination. Freedom of association and the right to collective bargaining is also one of these fundamental rights, although all too many employers conveniently try to forget it.

It is obvious that the G7 countries and others need to put effective legislation in place to ensure that businesses based in these countries respect these norms also when they are active abroad. This would be welcome also for those responsible buyer companies that take their supply chain commitment seriously as it would create a level playing field where good corporate behaviour would not hurt their competitiveness. This follow up to the UN Guiding Principles is in fact already in motion in many industrialised countries, large and small.

All the necessary elements for decent work are not covered by the UN Guiding Principles or Core ILO Conventions. This we can see also by looking at leading supply chain codes and standards such as the GSCP Reference Code or the SA8000 Social Standard – and many of the Fairtrade Standards – which are much more complete.

Labour legislation can define minimum requirements and thus hinder at least the most serious forms of rights violations and exploitation that could push also general conditions down. In a developed industrial relations system, laws are completed by employers and trade unions through collective agreements and social dialogue on different levels.

We are still very far from this in most important producer regions and it could take very long before local tripartite structures would bear the responsibility for regulating wages and conditions. This is of course a main reason that the UN Guiding Principles has come about.

Here we need public-private partnerships, to help make good intentions and principles into reality. The German authorities have clearly understood this and involved brands and retailers, trade unions and other stakeholders. Hopefully the business and trade union communities will also grow up to the challenge. They need to cooperate on these supply chain issues even when other interests may pitch them against each other.

Both business and unions have indeed been active as the G7 Summit comes closer.

We have seen some concrete commitments from leading businesses, in addition to general support statements for Germany’s G7 initiatives. Leading global food brands and retailers have promised to take concrete action to help realize the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) which will be formally agreed on later this year. In a letter to Chancellor Angela Merkel on behalf of the 400 Consumer Goods Forum member companies, the CEOs of Royal Ahold and Nestle commit these leading retailers and food brands to acting concretely to help secure and improve human rights and labour conditions in global supply chains.

These companies will now have to deliver on their promises which I am very optimistic about. The Global Social Compliance Programme GSCP, which works independently but is hosted by the Consumer Goods Forum, will have to play an important coordinating and supporting role. The corporate social responsibility CSR schemes and initiatives will be important tools and resources for practical on the ground work.

Maybe also the International Trade Union Confederation ITUC needs to take a new look at what CSR organisations such as SAI SA8000, ETI, FWF, BSCI and others are doing today. They have nothing to do with the paternalist approach to human resource management that sometimes has been labelled as corporate social responsibility. The CSR organisations which all involve civil society and build on third party verification of conditions in the supply chain have their main focus on capacity building and remediation of conditions at supplier workplaces. All of them have codes or standards that are clear on supporting freedom of association and the right to collective bargaining. Sometimes it is difficult for me to understand why they are not mobilised to support efforts to organise workers, gain employer recognition and negotiate fair and decent conditions.

It is equally important that buying brands and retailers and the business community more broadly understand how important it is in supplier countries that workers can organise freely and that proper structures and practices for collective agreement negotiations and social dialogue are established.