In today’s post, we cover Section B of The John Lewis Partnership‘s Responsible Sourcing Supplier Workbook which tackles issues relating to the employment of children.

Children work in every country in the world, and the work can take many forms, not all of which are problematic or illegal. Child labour becomes a problem when children are exploited, put at risk, forced to work in an unhealthy environment, denied an education, or denied a childhood.

The workbook defines unacceptable forms of child labour as:

• children forced to work against their will as bonded labour
• children working in formal factories under the legal minimum age
• children working in hazardous conditions

The workbook also lays out the JLP code for acceptable child labour:

• no recruiting or employment of children under 15 (or 14 if ILO exemptions apply)
• no exploitation and no denial of education
• protection of health and safety at all times
• no working at night or in hazardous conditions
• there shall be a clear policy for dealing with under-age workers

Furthermore, the workbook identifies the following situations for examination on a case-by-case basis to make sure the employment is acceptable:

• children who work regularly and attend school
• children who work occasionally to supplement parental income
• children who work at home
• children who live in and around work sites
• children who are involved with seasonal harvesting

The workbook also points out some relevant facts:

• high-risk countries for child labour include India, Bangladesh, Pakistan, and, increasingly, China
• over 246 million children worldwide are involved in child labour
• more than half of these children are engaged in hazardous work with 180 million facing long-term health risks
• with the number of children orphaned by HIV now at 15 million, the risk that more children will be forced into labor has increased

Thus, as a supplier you need to insure that

• there are effective systems to check age at time of recruitment
• a personnel file for each worker is kept
• a clear and documented policy is developed to deal with child labor
• if you have a creche, this is an adequate distance from production areas
• your workers have access to education
• each of your suppliers also follows the rules

You also need to be active in the protection of young workers:

• identify who your young workers are
• carry out a risk assessment for these young workers
• remove any hazards or risks they are exposed to
• carry out regular spot checks
• scrutinize shift rosters, timecards, and wage records for compliance
• sponsor annual medical checkups and access to health services

If you find child labour that is not compliance with all of the requirements of the JLP Code and the ILO regulations, the workbook also suggests appropriate remediations, since inappropriate responses can often be as damaging as the child labor itself. It also includes some case studies that clarify acceptable child labor from unacceptable child labor and points you to a number of additional resources that you can draw on.

In our next post, we’ll tackle the second major issue addressed by the workbook, forced labor. (You can access all of the posts in the series (to-date) by selecting the JLP category at any time.)

Back in February, the John Lewis Partnership released the Responsible Sourcing Supplier Workbook that I’m betting was downloaded by most of you who knew about it, being the good little socially responsible citizens that you are, but not read – since you opened it up, saw that it was 80 full pages of dense material (as it wasn’t written in the Big – 5  take – a – six – page – white – paper – and – turn – it – into – a – twety – pager – by – using – lots – of – white – space – and – pictures style), and put it away for later when you had the time (which, of course, never materialized).

However, it’s too important to ignore – so I’m going to help you, dear reader, by summarizing the key points in a series of twelve short and to-the-point blog entries over the summer that cover the main points on a more-or-less section-by-section basis. Then, you’ll not only know what’s in the report, but what sections are key for your organization.

You can thank me by leaving a comment that states

  ( 1 ) how much you appreciate the educational focus of this blog and

  ( 2 ) that you hope to be able to continue reading it everyday^* to tell my prospective sponsors that you really do exist (and that this is a valuable place to invest those community dollars) and that the ever-increasing bandwidth utilization reported by the hosting service I use isn’t just a figment of their imagination^**). Furthermore, if you haven’t done so recently, you can fire off an e-mail and tell all if your colleagues about all the great blogs you read in, and around, the procurement and sourcing space and help us innovative bloggers prove that it is the blogs, and not the stale trade rags, that define where it’s at.

The JLP believes that responsible sourcing is about ensuring the people that make and supply the products they sell are treated fairly and with respect. This covers a number of issues, including how much they are paid, how long they work in a day, whether the workplace is safe, their ability to voice concerns to management, and the environment in which they work.

According to JLP, responsible sourcing is important because it’s good for your business and because it’s good for your relationships with customers. Contented workers are more productive (as evidenced by the included case study of a Sri Lankan garment manufacturer), unnecessary costs (from accidents, work stoppages, lower productivity, etc.) are reduced, risk to reputation is significantly reduced, and you have a much greater chance of meeting your customers’ expectations. (This last point is crucial when over 90% of consumers believe that retailers should ensure their products are manufactured in a fair and humane way.)

Furthermore, a responsible supplier adheres to a Code of Ethics and a responsible buyer insures that each of it’s supplier adheres to the Code. The JLP Code, which is a great start, states that:

Suppliers are expected to:

• establish management systems for executing compliance
• task a senior manager with the responsibility for ensuring compliance
• maintain records that demonstrate compliance
• communicate the code, and its requirements, to all stake-holders, be they internal or external
• take steps to ensure their suppliers and sub-contractors comply with the Code

Suppliers are to comply with:

• all applicable laws in the countries in which they operate and all relevant ILO (International Labour Organization) conventions
• all policies in the Responsible Sourcing Code

In our next post, we’ll tackle the first major issue addressed by the workbook, the employment of children.

^* The harsh reality is that a professional blog with an educational, analytical, or business focus with a high-frequency of publication is not sustainable over the long term unless it is directly or indirectly revenue generating for the blogger (unless the blogger is independently wealthy or has an unnatural gamer’s ability to go seemingly forever without sleep). It’s the most likely reason why so many (potentially) great blogs have (almost) disappeared over the last year. (And since I’m not going to expose you to ads, collect your information for resale to targeted marketing lists, merchandise, or turn this into a purely pay-to-play endeavor, as there are enough of those out there already, an open-sponsorship mode, following in Spend Matters‘ footsteps, is really the only way to go.)

^* This blog is now averaging around 3,000 hits a day and close to 1,500 unique page views and traffic is still increasing steadily (and we are talking whole percentage points every week).