On 8 October 2018 we published the BTS Round Table on the Future of Work, in which 12 experts explain recent changes to the nature of work and offer new ideas in labour policy, organising, and activism. This piece has been written in response.
Corporations have been selling ‘ethical’ products and services to consumers for over three decades. Many of these efforts have been organised under the banner of corporate social responsibility (CSR), with proponents advocating this as a means to secure workers’ rights. Despite their well-documented limitations and brands acknowledging the need for improvements, most CSR initiatives continue to resist the structural changes needed. They instead prefer to tinker around the edges of a failed model.
Most CSR programmes are designed to fail. This starts with their top-down approach. As a general rule they rely on credentialed outsiders, who have little to no ties to workers and their communities. Global brands and retailers tend to bargain-hunt with the auditing industry as much as they do with their suppliers. Auditors seeking to win contracts are largely assessed in terms of their capacity to work quickly. They usually have a set number of days on site and whatever they come back with becomes their findings. This approach has cost lives. Factories like Ali Enterprises, Tazreen Fashions, and Rana Plaza had all been monitored or certified by an international code of conduct initiative before they suffered accidents that left over 1500 workers dead within a year.
