The latest ‘Let’s Clean up Fashion’ report makes interesting reading. It highlights the wide variety in approach among fashion retailers in addressing the concept of a living wage. For some, it seems, this has yet to register on the radar as an issue – still! While, encouragingly, it is something that other companies seem to take very seriously indeed. However, there is a problem when companies take action in isolation and develop their own individual approach. This can lead to confusion throughout the value chain, from supplier through to end consumer, as to where companies stand, or how they compare, on the issues and the progress they make.
For me, the most interesting observation in the report is how, by working together with other companies and stakeholders (e.g. Trade Unions and NGOs) through programmes like the Ethical Trading Initiative, companies are more likely to develop an effective approach to an issue. As the report states “a multi-stakeholder initiative is the most effective means of pursuing a collaborative approach… those brands and retailers developing the most interesting projects are also those who have been engaged in the ETI”.
Companies that collaborate in this way realise that they do not operate in a vacuum and that by combining their efforts they can improve their own approach and have a greater impact. At Corporate Citizenship we have seen this work successfully in the community investment field through the London Benchmarking Group, which helps ensure that companies do not reinvent the wheel, that they embed a common and therefore comparative approach, and help develop a common language.
There is something profoundly depressing about the continued regularity and inevitability of stories that report exploitation of workers, particularly it seems in food and fashion production. Yet, it is at least a little encouraging that leading companies are finding ways to collaborate on key issues to, hopefully, reduce the occurrence.
Jon Lloyd is a Senior Consultant at Corporate Citizenship. Email him at jon.lloyd@corporate-citizenship.com to discuss assurance, community investment, impact assessment and the London Benchmarking Group.
High street retailers accused of exploiting workers in Asia
Tesco, Asda and John Lewis are among a group of high street British brands that have been accused of exploiting factory garment workers in Asia by failing to pay them enough to live on, in a report published on October 7 by Labour Behind the Label. ‘Let’s Clean Up Fashion: the state of pay behind the UK high street’ criticised UK retailers for having “no coherent strategy” to ensure that hundreds of thousands of workers receive a decent wage. The report surveyed 25 major high street brands and graded them between zero and five for their commitment to a living wage principle (with zero signifying no principle in place). Those with poor scores included Levi Strauss & Co, which scored the lowest mark, for failing to accept any responsibility for workers’ wages. Contact: Labour Behind The Label www.labourbehindthelabel.org
US blueberry farms accused of using children as pickers
According to a report by ABC News, Walmart and the Kroger supermarket chain have severed ties with a major US blueberry grower after an investigation found children,including one as young as five-years-old, working in its fields. The children were discovered at the Adkin Blue Ribbon Packing Company, in Michigan, by graduate school students working with ABC News as fellows with the Carnegie Corporation. Human rights groups have stepped up their calls for a clampdown on agricultural
businesses, where they say children are routinely exploited. Contact: ABC News www.abcnews.go.com
Cluster bomb trade funded by world’s biggest banks
Almost one year on from the historic signing of the Convention on Cluster Munitions in Oslo in December 2008, 138 financial institutions still provide over $20 billion worth of investments and financial services to eight producers of cluster bombs, according to a report released on October 28. ‘Worldwide investments in cluster munitions; A shared responsibility’ calls for public and private financial institutions to support the ban and disinvest from cluster bomb producers. The publication, by IKV Pax Christi and Netwerk Vlaanderen, categorizes retail banks, investment banks, asset management companies and private and public pensions into a “Hall of Shame,” a “Hall of Fame” and “Runners-Up”, based on their investment policies and practices. HSBC, Goldman Sachs, Merrill Lynch, Deutsche Bank and JP Morgan Chase were among the companies listed as providing investment banking services to companies producing cluster munitions Contact: IKV Pax Christi www.ikvpaxchristi.nl/UK Netwerk Vlaanderen www.netwerkvlaanderen.be/en/
Indigenous unrest as US oil company threatened with eviction from Amazon
Indigenous people have threatened to evict a US company, Hunt Oil, exploring for oil on their ancestral land in the Peruvian Amazon. FENAMAD, an indigenous organisation in south-east Peru, says that local people have also asked to speak directly to Hunt’s owners. Hunt is a private company whose CEO, Ray Hunt, is a long-standing associate of former US presidents George Bush and George W. Bush. Meanwhile, the Peruvian government is planning to disband Peru’s national organisation representing indigenous people in the Amazon, known by its Spanish acronym AIDESEP. The proposal for AIDESEP’s dissolution was made by Peru’s Ministry of Justice. It is based on the claim that AIDESEP is ‘flagrantly violating’ its charter and undermining ‘public order’. Contact: Survival International www.survivalinternational.org
Blow to Malaysian palm oil industry as UK bans ad
An advert for Malaysian palm oil has been banned in the UK, dealing a major blow to the credibility of Malaysia’s palm oil industry. Members of the hunter-gatherer Penan tribe in Borneo have welcomed the ban, saying, ‘Oil palm plantations have not benefited us at all; they have only robbed us of our resources and land.’ The UK’s Advertising Standards Agency banned the magazine advert, placed by the Malaysian Palm Oil Council. The advert claimed that Malaysian palm oil was ‘sustainable’ and contributed to ‘the alleviation of poverty, especially amongst rural populations.’ Contact: Advertising Standards Authority www.asa.org.uk Survival International www.survivalinternational.org
ICMM publication to help mining industry with human rights
In October, the International Council on Mining and Metals published a report; ‘Human Rights in the Metals & Mining Industry: Overview, Management Approach and Issues’, which aims to describe a set of overarching design principles that provide basic, high-level guidance for companies developing complaints mechanisms. The publication also outlines some basic criteria to help operations ‘assess the nature of and potential for complaints’ and so to develop a mechanism most appropriate to their situation, and sets out various ways in which global headquarters of companies can develop ‘group-wide procedures’ to support best practice locally. The main audience for the guidance is ICMM’s members and other interested companies in the mining industry. Contact: ICMM www.icmm.com
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