In our last post, we discussed forced labour and the issues it entails, corresponding to section C of the report.

In today’s post, we cover section D of The John Lewis Partnership‘s “Responsible Sourcing Supplier Workbook” which tackles health, safety, and hygiene issues.

Health and safety includes fire safety, machine and chemical usage, protective equipment, sanitary facilities, adequate first aid, and health and safety training.

Key problems include:

• varying perceptions of what is safe and what is hazardous
• lack of information about the risks and hazards
• health and safety conditions are likely to be worse in subcontractor facilities

These problems are significant. JLP’s research has determined that:

• more fatalities have occurred in the workplace than during war-time: almost 270 million accidents are recorded yearly, of which 2.2 million are fatal
• over 208 million workers suffer from work related diseases
• in China alone, the cost of occupational illnesses and work-related injuries is 100 Billion Yuan in direct losses, with indirect losses estimated to be double that, and 727,945 work-related accidents, including 126,760 work-related deaths, were reported in 2005 with an unknown number going unreported
• in Africa, HIV prevents approximately 2 million people from going to work at any given moment, and this number is expected to double by 2015
• this is an area where more than 60% of all non-compliances tend to occur during social audits, despite being one of the simplest to tackle and most heavily regulated

These, and other problems, are addressed by the JLP code which states:

• a clean, safe, and healthy workplace in compliance with all applicable laws will be maintained
• employers must take adequate steps to prevent accidents and injuries
• health and safety risk assessments must be carried out regularly
• regular health and safety training is to be provided to all workers
• appropriate personal protective equipment is to be provided, free of charge, to all workers
• workers shall be provided with access to clean drinking water and sanitary facilities at all time
• on-site accommodations will be clean, safe, secure, and meet all basic needs
• transport will meet national legal standards and minimize risks to the workforce
• in geographically isolated areas, an employer will provide support services, including schooling, medical and health facilities, and recreational facilities
• any food, beverages, and goods offered for sale by an employer must not cost more than average local costs

In order to insure that you comply with all regulations and provide a healthy, safe, and hygienic workplace, you should, at a minimum:

• conduct regular risk assessments on your production sites (at least annually)
• promptly identify any-and-all risks and take immediate actions to minimize, and if possible, remove these risks
• provide workers with appropriate personal protective equipment free of charge and insure that they wear it at all time in hazardous areas
• insure that all workers receive regular health and safety training appropriate to their jobs
• insure the site contains sufficient fire exits and that these are clearly marked
• insure all production areas have sufficient fire-fighting equipment
• insure all workers who work with hazardous materials receive regular medical check-ups
• have a formal, documented, health and safety policy
• have clear procedures on what to do in the event of an emergency
• insure there are a sufficient number of properly equipped first aid boxes readily available on the production site
• insure a sufficient number of your staff are properly trained in first aid
• clearly document safe usage instructions, in the workers’ native language, for all machinery
• guard all dangerous parts of machinery and maintain them regularly
• adhere to all the guidelines of the JLP code

The workbook also contains a methodology for conducting a proper risk assessment, an overview of what constitutes an effective training session, a process for setting up a health and safety committee, and tips on how to handle the issues surrounding the use of hazardous chemicals.

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

In our last post, we discussed child labour and the issues you need to be concerned about, corresponding to section B of the report.

In today’s post, we cover section C of The John Lewis Partnership‘s “Responsible Sourcing Supplier Workbook” which tackles the issue of forced labour. Something for my fellow Canadians to reflect on while they celebrate Canada day today and something for my colleagues south of the border to reflect on while they celebrate Independence Day on Wednesday (July 4, 2007).

Forced labor refers to any work carried out under threat of penalty, which means that workers do not have a free and unencumbered choice when it comes to the work that they perform. There are many kinds of forced labour, and you need to be familiar with all of them in order to recognize whether or not any forced labor is taking place in your organization or that of your supplier organizations.

• Forced Overtime At a basic level, forced labor includes the situation where workers are not given a choice about whether or not they work overtime.
• Penalty-based Employment This happens when a production site required workers to pay a deposit when they enter the workforce and does not allow them to retrieve the deposit unless they work at the production site for a minimum length of time, when original ID papers are withheld from the employee, when employees are paid in tokens which can only be used to buy goods and services from the employer, or when threats and violence are used. This practice is common in many Asian countries, including China where it is illegal.
• Bonded Labour This occurs when a person is forced to work, for minimal or no wage, to pay off a debt the worker or his or her family allegedly owes the employer. This includes workers who have been trafficked to a country to pay off their ‘travel’ debt.
• Involuntary Prison Labour In some countries, prisoners may be forced to work against their will without wages in poor working conditions.

Forced labour is a serious issue not only because it can trigger a serious backlash in the press if they find out it is occurring at your plant, but also because:

• the ILO estimates the number of victims of forced labour globally at approximately 12.3 million
• it occurs regularly in Asia and the Pacific, Latin America and the Caribbean, and in sub-Saharan Africa
• roughly two-thirds of total forced labour in Asia and the Pacific is due to economic exploitation
• children in forced and bonded labour represent two-thirds of children in the worst forms of child labour, conservatively estimated at 5.7 million children worldwide

This means that, as an employer, you need to insure that :

• workers are free to leave your site after their shift ends
• your workers must have the freedom to leave without penalty with reasonable notice, which should be consistent with local laws, stated in contracts, and communicated effectively to workers
• overtime is voluntary
• deposits are immediately returned to workers after a minimum period of time, and immediately upon termination of employment (and they should sign to show they received the deposit)
• if original ID papers are required for employment, only copies should be retained by management and the originals immediately returned after verification of authenticity
• if loans are made to workers, the terms are clearly documented in the worker’s language, the loan does not tie the worker to your employment, the repayment terms are clearly documented and a system is in place for early repayment or reassignment to a new employer, the repayment amounts are reasonable in proportion to the workers’ total wage, and the worker clearly understands all of the terms of the loan before it is made in order to prevent bonded labour situations
• you only use prison labor where the prisoners work in safe and hygienic environments, where they are compensated for their work, and where they have a choice
• your supply chain is transparent with respect to labor as extreme forms of forced labour are most likely to occur in subcontracted production or in component suppliers

Many suppliers use weaker forms of forced labor, such as deposits and withholding of ID papers, as a tactic to combat very high turnover rates. This happens a lot in countries deemed Low Cost Countries, since the rapid influx of first world capital trying to take advantage of lower labor costs creates a shortage of skilled workers. This can often be avoided by educating suppliers that incentives and bonuses for fixed terms of service offer a much better retention scheme and by insuring that you pay a fair price for the product they produce (to make sure the supplier can afford to pay fair wages and bonuses to its staff).

In our next post, we’ll tackle the third major issue addressed by the workbook, that of health, safety, and hygiene. (You can access all of the posts in the series (to-date) by selecting the JLP category at any time.)

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).