The first decade of ethical trade has demonstrated the limitations of audit-heavy approaches in delivering change for workers in global supply chains. Retailers must get radical.
A decade ago, a small group of visionaries created the Ethical Trading Initiative. Next week more than 350 power brokers of ethical trade from around the world will attend an international conference to celebrate what we’ve collectively achieved during ETI’s first decade, and to help shape our direction.
Participants will be drawn from a membership of more than 50 companies including Tesco, M&S, Asda and Sainsbury’s; trade union organisations representing 160 million workers worldwide; and 17 campaigning organisations and charities. We have moved steadily closer to building the critical mass of companies we need to achieve widespread change: last year, ETI member companies reported nearly 55,000 separate improvements to working conditions, collectively leveraging more than 38,000 companies that together account for more than six million workers.
But the scale and pace of change to workers’ lives remains frustratingly slow. Many workers, including some of the most vulnerable, such as migrant workers and those on temporary contracts, have seen little change. Scant progress has been made on increasing recognition of trade union rights.
The global economic downturn isn’t helping. Although more suppliers are paying their workers their statutory entitlements, rising fuel and commodity prices mean workers’ incomes in many cases are falling in real terms. And the market trend to push risk down the supply chain with lean production and just-in-time delivery means suppliers – and therefore workers – are feeling the heat more than ever.
One thing we’ve learnt in our first decade is that an approach to ethical trade that leans too heavily on audits will never drive change. It is a dirty world. Suppliers keep double books; auditors are all too easily bribed to provide them with a clean bill of health; contractors continue to illicitly subcontract to disreputable and sometimes criminal employers.
We need to change the entire culture of ethical trade. We need chief executives to stop hiding behind their audits and using them to proclaim everything’s OK in their own back yard. We need them to stop consigning ethical trade to a philanthropic department at the end of the corridor and start talking about it in the same breath as profits. We need to see more companies building relationships of open communication and trust with their suppliers, and working in collaboration with each other and with trade unions and NGOs to tackle systemic issues like low wages and child labour.
Leading companies have begun to realise this. They have gained respect from some of their most vehement critics for starting to build stronger relationships with fewer suppliers, developing strategic alliances with unions, training buying staff to integrate workers’ issues into their decision-making, and providing practical advice and support to suppliers in improving their labour practices, rewarding them for doing so with repeat business.
We urgently need to continue this momentum. Let’s be clear, the demands on retailers to trade ethically will grow, not diminish.
Alan Roberts is chair of the Ethical Trading Initiative.
Participants will be drawn from a membership of more than 50 companies including Tesco, M&S, Asda and Sainsbury’s; trade union organisations representing 160 million workers worldwide; and 17 campaigning organisations and charities. We have moved steadily closer to building the critical mass of companies we need to achieve widespread change: last year, ETI member companies reported nearly 55,000 separate improvements to working conditions, collectively leveraging more than 38,000 companies that together account for more than six million workers.
But the scale and pace of change to workers’ lives remains frustratingly slow. Many workers, including some of the most vulnerable, such as migrant workers and those on temporary contracts, have seen little change. Scant progress has been made on increasing recognition of trade union rights.
The global economic downturn isn’t helping. Although more suppliers are paying their workers their statutory entitlements, rising fuel and commodity prices mean workers’ incomes in many cases are falling in real terms. And the market trend to push risk down the supply chain with lean production and just-in-time delivery means suppliers – and therefore workers – are feeling the heat more than ever.
One thing we’ve learnt in our first decade is that an approach to ethical trade that leans too heavily on audits will never drive change. It is a dirty world. Suppliers keep double books; auditors are all too easily bribed to provide them with a clean bill of health; contractors continue to illicitly subcontract to disreputable and sometimes criminal employers.
We need to change the entire culture of ethical trade. We need chief executives to stop hiding behind their audits and using them to proclaim everything’s OK in their own back yard. We need them to stop consigning ethical trade to a philanthropic department at the end of the corridor and start talking about it in the same breath as profits. We need to see more companies building relationships of open communication and trust with their suppliers, and working in collaboration with each other and with trade unions and NGOs to tackle systemic issues like low wages and child labour.
Leading companies have begun to realise this. They have gained respect from some of their most vehement critics for starting to build stronger relationships with fewer suppliers, developing strategic alliances with unions, training buying staff to integrate workers’ issues into their decision-making, and providing practical advice and support to suppliers in improving their labour practices, rewarding them for doing so with repeat business.
We urgently need to continue this momentum. Let’s be clear, the demands on retailers to trade ethically will grow, not diminish.
Alan Roberts is chair of the Ethical Trading Initiative.
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