For decades, workers, unions, students, and labour NGOs have joined together to try to hold global corporations accountable for the labour violations that have routinely taken place in their supply chains. Multi-faceted and often lengthy corporate campaigns have led to some workers in the supply chains of consumer-facing brands getting some measure of justice. However, “wins” have often been made on a factory-by-factory basis and have been fleeting due to the absence of meaningful reforms to business practices, weak labour laws and dysfunctional labour justice systems. More recently, binding transnational agreements have started to shift corporate behaviour across industries within a country, and litigation in some jurisdictions is putting direct pressure on parent companies and lead firms for what happens upstream. Still, the fundamental rules of the game have not yet been changed, meaning the quest for justice for most workers often remains well beyond reach (and even worse for marginalised groups of workers). Indeed, efforts which have been ongoing since 2016 to negotiate new rules to protect workers in global supply chains at the ILO stalled in 2020 due to concerted employer opposition. The essays and interviews in this issue of the Global Labour Rights Reporter seek to evaluate some of the efforts so far to embed labour rights in global supply chains and look to what might come next.

Accountability and Remedy in Global Supply Chains: Considerations for Workers and Unions_English DOWNLOAD
Accountability and Remedy in Global Supply Chains: Considerations for Workers and Unions_Spanish DOWNLOAD
Accountability and Remedy in Global Supply Chains: Considerations for Workers and Unions_French DOWNLOAD

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Responsible Recruitment: Remediating Worker – Paid Recruitment Fees
Publications

A major cause of forced labour in global supply chains is the charging of recruitment fees to migrant workers. Some companies have sought to reimburse workers charged these fees, many face serious challenges in doing so. Reimbursing worker-paid fe...Read More

Human trafficking committed abroad
Publications

Switzerland likes to be the exception. Unfortunately, this is also the case when it comes to the direct application of the Council of Europe Anti-Trafficking Convention. Whereas the Convention states clearly that the access to support services must ...Read More

Reality Behind Brands’ CSR Hypocrisy: An Investigative Report on China Suppliers of ZARA, H&M, and GAP
Publications

In the spring of 2015 and 2016, SACOM conducted undercover investigations inside four of Zara, H&M, and GAP’s supplier factories in China. Despite three brands’ CSR policies appear to be comprehensive and enable them to proclaim ethical, SA...Read More

State Report Cards: Grading Criminal Record Relief Laws for Survivors of Human Trafficking
Guidance

Many survivors of human trafficking exploited in the commercial sex industry or other labour sectors have been arrested for offenses stemming from their victimization. Resulting criminal records – both arrest and court documents – then follow su...Read More