Bangladeshi workers protest on 27 November 2012, two days after a fire in a garment factory in Dhaka, Bangladesh, kills at least 112 people. Khurshed Rinku/Press Association Images. All rights reserved.
The International Labour Organisation is dedicating part of its annual conference in Geneva to an important discussion on how to promote decent working conditions in global supply chains. This discussion is long overdue! The tragic collapse of the Rana Plaza building in 2013, repeated deadly factory fires in Pakistan and Bangladesh, and the shocking discovery of ‘modern day slavery’ on Thai fishing vessels, are only some of the examples of the recent events and generally horrible working conditions that make this discussion necessary.
We believe that it should start with a clear understanding of what hasn’t worked in the past. Put simply, decades of voluntary corporate social responsibility initiatives have failed to deliver living wages, safe factories, or effective protections for workers’ rights to organise and bargain collectively. In the last ten years alone, more than 1,800 workers have died and thousands more have been injured as a result of the catastrophic building fires and factory collapses which took place in facilities labeled as ‘safe’ by private social audits conducted for major global apparel brands. This alone suggests that the current regime of voluntary and confidential supply chain monitoring is insufficient.
