ETI Member Day 2023

Our first in-person all member day on 29 March was attended by over 150 trade union, NGO and company members and partners.  

Our main objectives for the day were: 

• Enable ETI members to connect with one another across the tripartite member base. 
• Offer the chance to explore live supply chain challenges and how to tackle them. 
• Provide members with practical insights to take back to their organisation. 

What follows is a summary of the day, the perspectives and insights shared, and practical examples explored on each panel. See the full agenda here.

Welcome 

Mary Creagh CBE and ETI Board Chair, opened the day with recognition of ETI’s presence and influence over the past 25 years.  She reflected on today’s context, acknowledging the challenges and opportunities for business and human rights, not least the continued impact of Covid, ongoing conflicts and climate impacts for workers. She also touched on the reality of the challenging economic situation, gender-based discrimination, pandemic disruption and increasing levels modern slavery. The UK’s Seasonal Workers Scheme (SWS) was specifically mentioned, with reference to its disastrous impact on migrant workers, for which it has received little scrutiny. ETI is part of a taskforce working to address these issues. 

Mary also noted that the year ahead could include new changes for banks, a European green deal, continued introduction of changes to the legislative environment and the need to bring greater resilience. 

Keynote  

Preet Kaur Gill MP and Shadow Cabinet Minister for International Development delivered the first keynote, congratulating ETI’s achievements since its establishment in 1998. She emphasised today’s challenging global context with multiple disasters at play - from war and conflict, to inflation, food insecurity and famine, climate change, and global health emergencies - stating ETI’s tripartite approach is exactly the model we should aspire to in addressing them.  

Preet also underlined the role of government in tackling these crises, and the importance of international development. Stating her agenda would prioritise both, championing an internationalist Britain that leads on global initiatives. 

“Putting the UK on the cutting-edge from a technology perspective, using global connections and ensuring we are driven by the right values, we can thrive. We should work to ensure consumers choose the right brands based on values.”  

Preet recognised that the playing field needs to be fairer, and that we need to place workers top of the agenda, and their welfare at the core of business. She closed calling on businesses to secure commitments to tackling human rights abuses, that government needs to provide stability and long-term development where business and workers along the supply chain can flourish. 

Panel:  Supply chains & workers’ rights in a changing world 

As keynote speaker on our first panel, Guy Stuart, Director of Technical Agriculture and Sustainability at the Co-op, highlighted the connected nature of food resilience and supply chains for retailers, and the need to fully understand them. Guy emphasised that for business, the overarching umbrella work on sustainability is complex and requires an interconnected and holistic approach that industry can only facilitate by working together. 

Guy also highlighted the importance of technology in progress, and the need for a change in the way that businesses interact with consumers. While there is a need for all businesses to ensure that they are addressing human rights, this must not be compliance focused, but instead build interconnected understanding across departments.   

Guy lauded ETI as a vital tripartite platform and encouraged other businesses to engage with their suppliers in the same collaborative way, building long-term trusted partnerships. He finished by stating that the future is in our hands to make a genuine difference to the people, cooperation, and sustainability aspects of how we do business. 

Panel discussion  

Our three panellists represented each of ETI’s tripartite member caucuses. Their lively discussion explored the impact of several cross-cutting issues on global supply chains; including the pandemic, international politics, climate change, the future of food, the Ukraine war, and civil conflict, to name just a few.  

 Key takeaways  

• We all need to share learning and truly work with our competition to increase collaboration.  
• Companies should analyse where they are at present, what they currently do and have a clear forward-looking plan for HRDD, built through collaboration with partners and stakeholders. 
• Poor freedom of association is causing detrimental impacts on forward planning – the voice of the workers needs to be at the heart of what we do. 
• More transparency is key, companies all have data that we could be using and sharing to understand issues and improve standards. 
• There is a need to look at business models and to make real changes we need to look at that level. 
• Sustainability must occur across teams. It cannot sit in the corporate social responsibility department alone. Businesses need to ensure that they avoid greenwashing. 
• All companies need to engage workers more. 
• All companies should be advocating for stronger business laws which are more effective. 

Breakout sessions 

 Session 1 – The journey to net-zero & its impacts on women 

This session was used to explore the realities of work for women as we strive towards environmental sustainability in global supply chains, posing the question: where are we in our understanding of potential labour rights risks from a gender perspective?  With examples across different businesses brought by our five panelists, the discussion covered how we can improve our understanding and start addressing these risks in a manner that ensures equal rights and opportunities for all workers in the transition to net-zero. 

Key takeaways 

• There are specific issues to consider in any supply chain and a need to understand the knock-on effect for women workers, for example: 
• The lack of ID for workers resulting in no access to healthcare. 
• Women forced to leave jobs when they are pregnant due to lack of services. 
• Many refuse collectors are women - informal work in informal supply chains which leads to severe vulnerability and instability of surroundings. 
• Lack of access to toilets for women in male dominated industries. 
• Reduced food availability (women eating less to enable their family to eat). 
• Increase in domestic violence because of stress. 
• Businesses need to ensure that social dialogue works and includes representation of women and other worker groups who are more likely to be at risk. 
• Where supply chains have a high proportion of women, (e.g., tea and flowers) human rights impact assessments are critical to mitigate disproportionate impacts on women. 
• Looking for ways to empower women in supply chains is key – understanding pricing for example, and empowering women through information sharing. 
• Five key considerations for integrating gender considerations into strategies:  

1. Prioritise gender lens/cross map gender and emissions. 
2. Record and or strengthen gender data and analysis. 
3. Address siloes/integrate gender across different departments. 
4. Develop context-specific solutions. 
5. Foster collaboration with suppliers, top-down approaches will not work. 

Session 2 – Getting leadership teams on board 

There is increasing recognition of the impact business practices can have on supply chain workers and the risk that vulnerable supply chains present to business.  

In this session, supply chain expert, Vanessa Podmore, chaired a panel to explore: What gets the attention of leadership teams? And how do we make the connections between their roles and the lives of workers?   

Key takeaways 

• Investors play a key role and are looking for businesses to act, asses, align, investors are a key part of the equation and powerful stakeholders 
• Investors can influence a business at Board level and ensure human rights and ethical trade are on the agenda.  
• More and more interest within investors in ESG and tender negotiations more often involve ESG.   
• Senior leadership engagement is driven by public reporting frameworks, and it helps to ensure that there are people on the Board with relevant backgrounds and expertise in human rights. 
• Practical improvements are far more interesting for the Board than audit results and the use of data drives engagement at Board level. 
• It is key to change the narrative to focus on the voice of workers. Shifting from ‘risk to business’ to ‘risk to people’. 

Session 3 – Supply chains in crisis: What have we learnt from Myanmar, Ukraine & Sri Lanka? 

This session focused on discussing the role of responsible business when sourcing from areas where risk to workers is increasing, or where civil unrest or conflict prevails.    

ETI’s members have recently experienced the complexities and dilemmas associated with trading in conflict-affected and high-risk areas (CAHRAs). The panel brought expertise from an NGO, company, and local perspective regarding what they have learnt and how vital it is to act when facing heightened risk. 

Key takeaways  

• Stakeholder engagement needs to be meaningful, this means continuous, two-way dialogue, particular attention to vulnerability and integrating stakeholder communications into business conduct/conversations.  
• Importance of understanding your own leverage and acting when you have it. Influencing behaviours through collective action - speaking out both publicly and internally. 
• Responsible disengagement - understand potential impacts of disengagement and assessing if you can use disengagement as leverage.  
• Consider neighbouring countries when facing any crisis. Understanding impact in different layers. For example, migrants displaced from Ukraine, impact on infrastructure and social support in neighbouring countries. 
• Remember that we are talking about human beings – apply urgency thereafter.   
• Business needs to keep their own accountability in mind throughout and reach out for help internally.   
• Recognise specific risks in logistics/transport supply chains as this is part of every supply chain. Mobile migrant workers are particularly vulnerable – out of sight, out of mind. 
• Assessing potential risk and risk management is vital – risk mapping and research before onboarding suppliers in new countries/regions. Horizon scanning is crucial and is the responsibility of the business. 

Panel: How ETI’s NGO & trade union members can help companies deliver on human rights due diligence 

As keynote speaker on our final panel, Dr Dhananjayan Sriskandarajah, CEO at Oxfam, stated that the inequality crisis is not improving, “it's been accelerating, and we are collectively failing to tell that story. 1.7 billion workers are getting poorer”. 

Danny highlighted the importance of workers being seen at CEO level as part of an organisations’ team, to be seen as people within their organisation. He also spoke of the challenge behind connecting consumer to worker’s story in a meaningful way, influencing consumer understanding and choice.   

He stated that within some sectors collaboration is happening, such as in Malawi tea and bananas, but emphasised there is still a need for more sector level collaboration to really address systemic change. 

Panel discussion  

Moderated by Subindu Garkhel, Global Cotton & Textile Lead – Fairtrade Foundation our three panellists represented each of ETI’s tripartite membership base – Lucy Brill, Director – Homeworkers Worldwide, Sophia Cochrane - Head of Human Rights – Tesco, Gemma Swart - Global Campaigns Director – ITF.  They each shared a case study of how they are driving change for workers through collaboration. 

Key takeaways 

ITF 

• The shipping and logistics are supply chains that aren't always a priority for business in their human rights strategies – shipping industry alone moves 80% of internal traded products.   
• All businesses need to develop an understanding and respect for human and labour rights principles in transport supply chains and can do so by applying an ITF HRDD health check. 
• Business can prevent and mitigate root causes of risk by developing remediation plans with unions. 

HWW 

• For homeworkers specific issues exist such as no access to grievance mechanisms, no voice, risk of child labour, and workplace health threats, low pay - often around ½ minimum wage. 
• Collaborating with an NGO and/or union can help ensure due diligence is possible even in informal supply chains. 

Tesco  

• In order to collaborate with an NGO or union it can help internally to ensure it aligns with the organisational human rights strategy. 
• Collaboration can also help scale up an existing approach and to move beyond audit. 

Table discussion 

The session was followed by facilitated table discussion, to explore in smaller groups what experiences company members have had in working with trade unions or NGOs, what areas of their work could benefit from this type of collaboration and what barriers have they faced in being able to collaborate across the tripartite membership. 

Closing 

Mary Creagh CBE closed the day, stressing that working together and knowing our supply chains better can make them more resilient to the current changes. She reminded attendees that ETI facilitates dialogue among NGOs, trade unions and company members, stating that we can work together to exchange information and support each other. 

We need to change the perspective that ‘workers in factories within our supply chains are not our people’. We need to change that mentality at a senior level.