Avainsana: Bangladesh

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

GSCP meets in Los Angeles – Brands and retailers strengthen engagement and can better use the GSCP platform

UniversalGate
The GSCP Members meeting in Los Angeles was held at Universal Studios, hosted by NBCUniversal.

Global brands and retailers created the Global Social Compliance Programme GSCP to define what good looks like in global supply chains. Their intention was to drive upward convergence of corporate social standards, thus enabling mutual audit recognition and better cooperation. Multiple and often repetitious audits would be avoided and resources directed to improving conditions.

The approach of this business driven initiative was serious and ambitious. The Reference Code that was to be the backbone of GSCP would be designed to fill the most stringent requirements of existing policies and social standards. This would be done together with trade unions and civil society representatives.

For many of the stakeholders that finally signed up, supporting the new initiative was far from self-evident. My organisation at the time, UNI Commerce Global Union, set its own requirements and conditions, and so did others. After a solid internal consultation process among member trade unions, UNI Commerce decided to join.

The years that we spent creating the GSCP Reference code and the toolbox to help apply it at supplier workplaces showed us that our decision had been correct.

It was a complicated exercise to reconcile the views of huge global retailers such as Wal-Mart, Carrefour and Tesco with those of UNI Commerce, the International Federation for Human Rights FIDH, and others. Still it worked, and the Executive and Advisory Boards always found common ground and agreed on solutions.

Today, GSCP is in place. An actively used environmental module complements the social responsibility instruments. Membership is up and global brands and industries have joined forces with traders. Many programmes and projects are using GSCP tools for capacity building and remediation. Cooperation with UN agencies and others is steadily increasing. Buyers, auditors and CSR schemes use the GSCP equivalence process to enable mutual recognition and joint action.

This is happening in an environment where many union organisations, social campaigners and politicians are suspicious and even hostile towards voluntary approaches by business. The intention of some seems to be to duplicate the Bangladesh Accord on Building and Fire Safety when addressing also other countries, regions and issues.

I doubt that this would work. The Bangladesh Accord responded to an unusually grave situation in the midst of high publicity, and addressed a specific although important part of labour conditions.The way that it finally came about was also exceptional and related to a public opinion that demanded fast action by global buyers.

To bring about something similar in a less upset situation would surely require a mutually respectful relationship where serious intentions of others are recognised and accepted rather than looked at with suspicion and often immediately discarded. In today’s strained economic and labour relations climate, this would call for much re-thinking on all sides.

It is much more realistic to accept and develop multiple approaches to improve the social situation in global supply chains. Governments need to secure the basic respect for human rights as well as decent conditions for workers and their families. Trade unions must have the right and the capacity to give workers a voice in an environment where social dialogue and collective agreements become mainstream tools for regulating wages and employment conditions. Social advocacy associations and other non-governmental organisations need to be positively engaged.

Business driven but with a solid civil society participation, GSCP comes together for its Members Conference and a joint Executive and Advisory Board Meeting this Thursday, in Los Angeles. Priorities will be defined and concrete tasks set.

A platform rather than an operative CSR scheme, GSCP deals with similar issues as individual standard organisations. Still, the programme is different from the schemes and initiatives. GSCP does not conduct audits, issue certificates or engage directly in concrete capacity building and remediation at workplaces.

GSCP has a unique convening power among brands and retailers, much due to the serious commitment of its host association, the Consumer Goods Forum CGF. An important task for GSCP is indeed to mobilise responsible brands and retailers both within and outside the consumer industry for concerted action to help improve supply chain conditions.

To focus on particularly difficult or widespread supply chain problems may well be useful when real changes are sought. Successful projects on this basis can be good catalysts for further remediation of conditions. It is important to set any aims so that they build on the GSCP Reference Code principles of setting standards on the highest existing levels. To go below this could easily lead to misunderstandings or false interpretations and even harm other sustainability activities.

Even if individual issues are singled out for special attention, GSCP cannot distract itself from its core mission as a whole. The GSCP Reference Code is and must remain the backbone of all policies and programmes, to ensure cohesion, credibility, impact and respect.

The final aim of this social responsibility work is a situation where employers and workers can agree on relations and conditions through mutually respectful social dialogue and collective agreements, supported by governments. To achieve this requires that buyer companies help ensure full compliance with universal human rights standards and international labour norms, also where national legislation or policies are not on these levels.

GSCP is an exceptionally good forum to develop joint approaches which then can be implemented through multiple programmes and partner organisations. The UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights is now being included in national legislation and programmes. The German Presidency of the G7 Group of leading industrialised countries has placed supply chain sustainability high on the common agenda for 2015. These are but some of the developments that directly affect GSCP and its role as a convening platform.

The corporate sector wields much power in the globalised economy. GSCP exists to help leading global brands and retailers as well as other parts of the business community to ensure that universal human rights and decent labour standards are respected and applied in global supply chains. This is – and should be – in the interest of all. Without this contribution by the business community itself, change would be both slower and less effective.

This engagement is now building up within GSCP and should be actively nurtured. The member brands and retailers should more clearly show their commitment to GSCP as their common sustainability platform. This would not weaken their ties with schemes and initiatives who have their own missions and roles. GSCP itself should have the members’ support to speak out on their behalf for these business driven activities that are firmly anchored in civil society.

Julkaistu

Berlin Conference: G7 German Presidency drives stronger human rights and labour protection in global supply chains – world brands and retailers should step up their participation

OECD Secretary-General Angel Gurria and ILO Director General Guy Ryder at the podium of the German G7 Presidency Conference on sustainable supply chains in Berlin on 10-11 March 2015.

OECD Secretary-General Angel Gurria and ILO Director General Guy Ryder at the preparatory G7 Conference in Berlin in March this year.

A new approach to labour conditions in global supply chains is fast emerging. Human rights and labour standards will be applied in global supply chains more effectively than today. This came clearly out from the recent (10.-11.3.) G7 Conference on sustainable supply chains, arranged in Berlin by the German Presidency.

The Rana Plaza disaster in Bangladesh opened our eyes to the inhuman working conditions in major supplier countries. Those that may have thought that this will be fast forgotten have been proven wrong.

If the German government gets its way, the changes could be closer than we may think. The G7 Presidency is a solid platform for launching the initiative. Having participated in the Berlin Conference, I have no doubts: The political leadership of Europe’s and the European Union’s leading economy is clearly committed to change.

The intention today is to keep the approach voluntary. If the business sector lives up to its obligations, it could remain so. If real change does not happen, we may well see more legislation, sanctions and other binding measures. This would surely be the case also when countries apply the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights.

During two days, stakeholders from leading schemes and initiatives joined NGOs, business associations, governments and others, altogether 300 participants, in discussing the best ways to approach challenges. Germany’s labour and development ministers Andrea Nahles and Gerd Müller, as well as many of their minister colleagues from other countries, participated personally much of the time, joined by top government officials.

Major developments are on their way.

In Berlin, the top leaders of the ILO, OECD and the World Bank sat in the same panel, for the first time ever.  They committed their organisations to major roles in bringing about a social dimension to global supply chains.

Chancellor Angela Merkel took a personal interest and issued an important statement on the world economy and its social dimension, together with ILO Director General Guy Ryder, OECD Secretary-General Angel Gurria and World Bank President Jim Yong Kim.

Surprisingly few large brands and retailers were present. Those who were there included Carrefour, H&M and Ikea – not surprising perhaps, when one knows how seriously they approach their supply chain responsibilities.  Otherwise the business community – unless I have missed someone – was represented only through organisations, and by a number of German small and medium enterprises who are really focused on sustainability.

To stay away from the meeting was not a good choice.

Most large German brands and retailers question the government’s plans to introduce a sustainability label for consumers. Until now they have tended to distance themselves from the national tripartite textile alliance, the “Textilbündnis”.

The Berlin conference may well change this reserved approach, and hopefully it will. It does not have to mean that the companies give up their substance reservations, and if they really want to promote them they would need to be present.

Brands and retailers also tend to think that they are unable to take responsibility for anything below their first level suppliers. They point at the complicated structures of supply chains and say they are impossible to monitor effectively.

Not only brands and retailers are to be blamed for a lack of concerted action.

Social campaigners and many trade union organisations like to say that buyer companies just want to shy away from their responsibilities, focusing on generating as much profits as they can from their supply chains.

This may be true at times, and surely is, but far from always. There is a clear commitment to decent supply chain standards also in the business community and if the right approaches are found, real improvements will come about.

Taking formal responsibility for a long and complicated supply chain is definitely a serious decision that cannot be made lightly. The same is true about consumer labels. If even advanced monitoring schemes such as the Fair Wear Foundation does not believe even in certifying factories, and SA8000 has decided not to use consumer labeling, then one can ask whether it is really possible to apply this on a general level.

Back to Berlin, business should have participated more actively in the conference. Also for those who have strongly divergent views it would have been better to have them around the table.

Business should indeed be careful and alert. There is a post Rana Plaza world which will not continue to tolerate an economy that allows and even relies on poor and dangerous working conditions and extremely low wages. If a consensus between governments and all stakeholders is not found, we will see political solutions and legislation.

Social campaigners and trade unions should reflect whether it is really smart to dismiss the relevance of multi-stakeholder and business driven CSR initiatives – or social auditing for that. Without the engagement and active participation of buying brands and retailers it will be very difficult to apply any standards. The Global Social Compliance Programme GSCP can be very effective and useful here, and I will surely take some initiatives at our forthcoming board and member company meetings in Los Angeles.

So, what will then happen now?

  • The UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights will be applied through national legislation in all major industrialised countries. There is no doubt about this. There will also be a legal dimension and home countries of buyer companies will require that obligations are respected.
  • The OECD Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises will be more effectively applied and national contact points will play more of a role, this was made clear by Secretary-General Angel Gurria.
  • The world Bank will substantially upgrade social conditions as part of its development projects and is adding to its dedicated staff in cooperation with ILO, as its President Kim told the Berlin meeting.
  • Next year’s International Labour Conference will focus on global supply chains as a major issue.

I am further convinced that a living wage for all workers will soon be required all through the global supply chains.

When the G7 Presidency actively, openly and forcefully promotes environmental and social conditions in global supply chains, it would be smart to listen very carefully. We may well be witnessing the beginning of a new CSR era that brings a real change to the better for the supply chain workers and their families.

Julkaistu

Bangladesh workplace safety accord and alliance show benefits of broad participation in building sustainable supply chains

The influence of the Bangladesh building and fire safety Accord and Alliance on labour conditions in global supply chains should not be underestimated. Despite targeting only a small even if very important part of the supplier landscape, some of their approaches could useful and possible to apply also more broadly.

For obvious reasons, and rightly so, these activities have attracted a lot of attention and considerable resources. It is of course important that this does not happen at the expense of other urgent supply chain needs.

Factories, farms and fisheries in many regions and countries are affected by serious problems. Child labour is still a burning issue, from cotton fields to stone quarries. Trafficking and forced labour remains a huge problem, on construction sites, fishing vessels and in many other activities. Income levels remain far below the acceptable and a living wage seems very hard to reach.

What is often lacking is respect for workers as human beings. Traditional social divides and discrimination combine with profit interests to feed resistance against worker organising, social dialogue and collective agreements. Unless attitudes change and workers’ rights to collective representation get accepted there can be no sustainable improvement of labour conditions.

There are many countries where changes will not take place without clear messages from the outside world. Excluding any groups from efforts to improve the human rights and labour situation in global supply chains would be wrong. Business as well as unions and NGOs can all make important contributions and should all be encouraged to do their part.

Buying brands and retailers need to be seriously engaged, doing their part of implementing the UN Guidelines for Business and Human Rights.  Voluntary initiatives and codes of conduct can be useful guidelines for driving concrete action and they should not be belittled. There is much concrete capacity building and remediation going on with supplier companies, together with dedicated CSR schemes and initiatives such as SAI, ETI, FLA, BSCI and others. A professional social auditing industry can provide valuable knowledge about local situations and needs.

As a common business owned platform with a strong stakeholder representation, GSCP works for a general recognition and application of demanding social standards with a focus on bringing about real improvements to supply chain workers.

The GSCP Reference Tool for Auditing Competence wants to make sure that auditing remains credible and serious. Setting minimum professional standards, it supports buyers and their suppliers as well as the auditing industry itself. It helps schemes and initiatives ensure that they offer services at the highest industry standards. Most of all it benefits workers, ensuring that social audits lead to remediation and respect for human dignity at workplaces.

Although we should not in any way underrate the work for better supply chain conditions, we have to keep in mind the huge domestic labour markets where conditions are mostly much worse and less visible. Better labour conditions in export sectors can improve overall standards if there is a political determination.

Helping to make Bangladesh garment factories safer is important. Both programmes – Accord and Alliance – are concrete and already report on results. Initial factory audits have been completed and attention is on real improvements of safety conditions.

These projects work with a tight time schedule and we should soon start to see their real performance. Much will depend on how financing is arranged for the often necessary but also costly changes. Will the financial support commitments by brands and retailers be enough and what are the supplier companies themselves prepared to invest?

The Accord gives much influence and visibility to global trade unions and social campaigners whereas the Alliance is clearly business driven even if there is a civil society participation as well. The Accord reflects the European labour relations culture which is more social dialogue oriented, while the Alliance one is surely affected by the much more problematic US situation. Both are supported by the International Labour Organisation ILO and many consumer country governments.

One joint initiative would of course have been the most effective alternative. This was in fact the intention of the GSCP Executive and Advisory Boards when we took the first initiative and asked the German development agency GIZ to start preparing a fire safety project for Bangladesh and Pakistan. When I suggested to both boards that we should take concrete action I insisted that also IndustriALL Global Union be included.

There was also another building and fire safety initiative on the table, already for a few years. This was developed by American and European labour advocacy NGOs but had failed to attract sufficient support and participation from buyer brands and retailers. These organisations also became part of the GSCP-initiated GIZ process.

At the beginning, the common aim was a joint project. Soon events took another direction when differences emerged about whether the complaints procedure should be based on court proceedings or mediation and arbitration.

Particularly US companies were concerned that they could be challenged in court by hostile campaigners on various grounds, and did not accept this. Some labour unions and NGOs on their side did not trust that a mediation or arbitration procedure would be strong enough to ensure that buyers keep to their commitments. This was clearly affected also by the strained and often hostile labour relations climate in the United States.

At the final stages of project preparations, global union federations and advocacy NGOs took over the initiative from the less well coordinated buyer brands and retailers and began actively and publicly to assemble what is now the Accord. This lead most North American based brands and retailers to detach themselves from the process and develop and launch their own Alliance.

After this complicated process it is good that both projects seem to work reasonably well, side by side. Both are clearly there to bring about real changes in garment industry conditions. Hopefully the Bangladesh government and particularly the employers’ federation will do their part of the job to ensure safe conditions in the country’s garment industry.

Julkaistu

Social auditing in global supply chains is an essential tool for defending human rights and improving labour conditions

Demands to give up social auditing in global supply chains continue to emerge in different connections. Part of a political debate, they have not contained any realistic proposals about how to substitute these audits with other ways of gathering the information needed for improving conditions.

There have also been regular calls for opening up audit reports by making them public.

Publishing social audit results would give unions, labour advocacy organisations and others a better chance to intervene on behalf of workers when they see or feel that conditions need to be addressed.

To build up their involvement is a valid aspiration of these players and should not be brushed aside. A broad cooperation can indeed add to the impact of sustainability work where the key objectives are usually so widely shared.

More transparency could add to the relevance of social auditing as a tool that helps to protect human rights and ensure decent employment and working conditions. How to apply this so that the system continues to protect workers and others who provide confidential information to auditors is of key concern.

We can of course not forget that also the audited suppliers’ rights have to be protected, as have those of others involved. To make any changes in social auditing principles has to be approached with utmost care.

Moving from straight-forward ‘yes-or-no’ certification of labour conditions to a more nuanced and detailed audit reporting could well be one solution. Even more important is to link audit reporting directly to capacity building and remediation at supplier workplaces. After all, protecting human rights and securing decent labour conditions form the objective of all these activities.

Social Accountability International SAI has recently revised its SA8000 Social Standard and linked workplace certification directly to capacity building and remediation through its Social Fingerprint program. This is an excellent example of how creating direct and effective links between auditing, certification and remediation can be concretely and systematically approached.

There has also been much impatience among unions and others who say that they have failed to see even urgently needed changes to take place.

We have seen isolated failures of social auditing, but also some more systemic problems, sometimes unexpected until new kinds of situations have emerged. The auditing industry and the cooperating partners in the CSR community need to show that they are capable of handling these issues through more stringent rules and controls. In fact, much has been done, but not always well communicated to a broader public.

The 15 years or so of business driven and multi-stakeholder corporate social responsibility CSR activities have definitely brought improvements to supplier working conditions. Buying brands and retailers know that they must pay serious attention to the social aspects of their purchasing activities. This was not the case before Social Accountability International with its SA8000 Standard and others entered the scene.

The UN Guiding Principles would not have come about without the groundwork done also by the voluntary CSR schemes and initiatives. That Harvard Professor John Ruggie and his team were able to build a consensus around the responsibility of governments and business to protect human rights at work was a remarkable achievement. What was needed was that an important part of the business community already accepted their obligation and interest to approach their supply chains with due diligence.

CSR schemes and initiatives  are surely not the only forces behind these changes. Trade unions and labour advocacy organisations have done their part, as have many others. But changing business attitudes has been closely linked with the emergence of the CSR community, including social auditors.

The social auditing system itself has been far from flawless.

There will always be situations where social audits miss even significant problems or shortcomings at audited workplaces. There can be many reasons for this, one being that these audits cannot cover all factors that affect the work situation. Structural building safety, which in a tragic way proved to be a major and serious problem in the Bangladesh garment industry, is one of those where other approaches and tools were needed and also implemented.

Shortcomings and sometimes even unacceptable performances by individual auditors and companies can of course harm the whole industry. There could be unrealistic expectations towards social auditing, often related to new and unexpected situations. Audits cannot uncover all the deficiencies at a workplace, something which should be more effectively communicated.

It is always hard to find the correct balance between audit quality and costs, an issue which will surely never disappear. How can social auditors spend enough time both on audits and reporting and still keep the paying customers on board? Here, striving for the perfect can threaten the good, and compromising quality can undermine the reliability of the whole system.

There have been individual examples of poor or insufficient internal controls. While not common, they have caused both accreditation bodies and the auditing entities themselves to tighten up their rules. The auditing industry and the CSR community as a whole are well aware of the risks and have done much to control them.

The Global Social Compliance Programme GSCP auditing guidelines which auditing companies can benchmark against through an equivalence process are useful tools for improving social audit performance. They reflect a broad consensus between business and stakeholders about how the auditing system can be kept reliable.

In many parts of the world it will take very long before we see organised workers and their trade unions engage in social dialogue and collective agreement relationships with their employers, in an atmosphere or good faith and mutual respect.

Auditing remains an important part of efforts to secure human rights at work and  improve labour conditions in global supply chains. How could brands and retailers, their suppliers, and concerned stakeholders get the information that they need for remediation and capacity building if this tool did not exist?

Instead of saying no to social audits we should continue to develop and improve these activities.

Workers, trade unions, community organisations and others need to be more involved in monitoring conditions. Buying brands and retailers need to be an active part of this work and cannot outsource their due diligence obligations to others.

Most importantly, the audits have to be effectively and properly linked to and followed up by remediation and corrective action where a need for this has been identified.