WK 226 Monitoring business practice standards

Businesses are recognizing that adherence to human rights standards is good business practice. Cooperative efforts with and within the business sector have led to creative ways to monitor business practices and uphold standards of practice.

Panelists

Featured Tactic: Homero Fuentes, Commission for the Verification of Corporate Codes of Conduct, Guatemala Complementary Presentations:

• Kailash Satyarthi, South Asian Coalition on Child Servitude (SACCS) and Rugmark, India
• Peter Lewis, Wine Industry Ethical Trade Association, South Africa

Featured Tactic

Contracting with multinational corporations to monitor labor conditions in their factories Homero Fuentes, COVERCO, Guatemala

• View Homero Fuentes’ PowerPoint presentation 491 KB (Spanish)
• Read Homero Fuentes’ presentation outline (Spanish)

The Commission for the Verification of Corporate Codes of Conduct (COVERCO) monitors corporate codes of conduct for working conditions in Guatemalan factories and in the agricultural export industry through intensive, long-term independent monitoring. The organization first establishes a relationship with the corporation, then contracts with it to monitor their factories for a fee. COVERCO maintains a steady presence in the factories it monitors, rather than conducting short-term visits and filing one-time reports. Monitors, who are often former factory-workers themselves, visit the factories as frequently as once per week, meet with workers both during and outside of normal business hours and maintain a telephone hotline to ensure workers full access to monitors. Interviews are conducted in Spanish and are kept in strict confidence. Monitors seek to verify workers’ claims of poor treatment and always include management reaction to claims in their reports, taking note of situations where claims cannot be substantiated. COVERCO’s monitoring and reporting have been effective in pressuring management to address individual workers’ complaints. For example, COVERCO found that the Liz Claiborne factory was not collecting parental permission slips for minor workers, as required by Guatemalan law. When COVERCO raised the issue, the company began ensuring that they had parental permission for all minor workers.

Complementary Presentation

Kailash Satyarthi, South Asian Coalition on Child Servitude (SACCS) and Rugmark, India

• Read Kailash Satyarthi’s presentation outline

The Rugmark label identifies and promotes carpets made without child labor, providing consumers with the information they need in order to avoid contributing to human rights abuses while simultaneously increasing awareness of the problems associated with a particular product, creating demand for products that are produced and moved to market humanely. The Rugmark Foundation awards licenses to carpet exporters who agree not to use child labor and voluntarily submit to a monitoring system.

Complementary Presentation

Peter Lewis, Wine Industry Ethical Trade Association (WIETA), South Africa

• View Peter Lewis’ PowerPoint presentation 964 KB
• Read Peter Lewis’ presentation outline

The Ethical Trading Initiative (ETI), an alliance of companies, trade union organizations and NGOs from the UK, has carried out a three-year pilot project to develop a viable technique for monitoring labor practices in South Africa’s wine industry, in partnership with the South African stakeholders. ETI worked with wine producers to adopt minimum labor standards and, with local NGOs, carried out inspections at these vineyards, evaluating labor conditions throughout the entire wine-making process. This led to the creation of the Wine Industry Ethical Trade Association (WIETA), which includes trade union, producer, NGO and government representatives, and is charged with advancing the labor code within the wine industry.