Want to be confident about

workers working conditions?

Heres how
We have now reached the point where we know that no supply chain is
clean of exploitative labour practices. In fact, reputable international
NGOs working on modern slavery claim that no brand can claim not to
be supporting it. A recent report by Ashridge Centre for Business and
Sustainability and the Ethical Trading Initiative, reports that 71% of
companies believe that there is a likelihood of modern slavery occurring
at some stage in their supply chains (Lake et al, 2015:6). So what can
brands bent on being sustainable do about this reality?
Acknowledging this reality is certainly a precondition to making progress on
identifying and resolving unethical labour practices in supply chains. But we
need to go further. Sustainable brands need to move fast faster than the
journalists to find urgent cases and actively support change. Identifying
where the urgencies lie, requires good up-to-date data.
Do we already have that? Well, we have auditors reports, which are
invaluable. However audits cannot deliver all the data we need to check that a
given site has ethical labour practices. Our over-reliance on audits to date has
failed us. A series of tragedies - the most well-cited being Rana Plaza underlines this problem.
Gathering strong data on the everyday working conditions of an entire
workforce is simply impossible in a single audit visit. This data also isnt
generated through hotlines and helplines (notoriously under-used and
distrusted). The practice of auditors' leaving their business cards to enable
workers to get in touch after the audit visit is similarly ineffective in generating
a clear and well-evidenced picture of working conditions. We need statistically
sound data, rather than anecdotes or complaints.
This may seem a daunting challenge for sustainable brands. Where do you
start? What follows is a series of steps that we hope you find helpful.
1. Map your supply chains. Go further than your first, second and third tier

suppliers. Go as far as the plantation, the mine and the vessel.

2. Confirm that all the sites are audited, and check how regularly this happens.
On-site audit visits remain the sole source of insight into health and safety
compliance, to name one example of their importance.
3. Start hearing from workers directly. Roll out a system to enable all workers to
report their working conditions to you directly 2 to 4 times annually. This will
accommodate seasonality and give you a balanced picture.
4. Protect workers identities. Ensure that you can always guarantee anonymity
when engaging with workers about working conditions. Face to face interviews
render workers vulnerable to intimidation or worse, and helplines are used by
canaries and not by the most disempowered who are distrustful about who is
listening.
5. Ensure that the results are easy to read and actionable, so you can quickly
identify the urgencies and target your support and interventions where they
are needed most.
6. Collaborate with other parties buying from the same site or working in the
same geographies, to share the costs of gathering and analysing the data,
and to increase support for suppliers to make the necessary improvements.
7. Dont think hearing from workers directly needs to be a drain on the supplier.
Generating data on working conditions should not add to audit fatigue. The
supplier sees the results first. A simple bar chart showing working conditions
in a large workforce empowers the supplier to know where to start and what
needs changing.
8. Finally sustainable brands dont need to do it alone. Steps 3 to 7 can be
covered by well-established providers, and this wont break the bank. Cost
effective sources of data direct from workers are out there.
How do we know all this? Because this is what we do at &Wider. Go to
www.andwider.com to find out more.

Tensions in the wine industry regarding working conditions helped to

trigger the establishment of the Ethical Trading Initiative which
seeks to protect workers worldwide through enabling member
companies to understand and practice ethical trade.

The fishing industry warrants special attention when it comes to

working conditions, given the challenge of monitoring working
conditions on sea-going vessels.