We seek to ensure that workers are front and centre in identifying risks and developing solutions to improve accountability in supply chains.
Working with businesses to improve procurement of cleaning services
We are building on our long-standing research into high-risk sectors and emerging models for tackling labour abuse in supply chains to develop a worker-informed human rights due diligence framework for service sector supply chains. Together with the Latin American Women’s Rights Service (LAWRS), we are working directly with outsourced service staff to design a more sustainable and robust framework for ensuring responsible business conduct. In piloting our approach, we aim to help businesses that use outsourced services to develop policies to reduce the risk of exploitation for workers.
Exploring worker-driven social responsibility
Worker-Driven Social Responsibility (WSR) is an emerging model for tackling labour abuse in supply chains. WSR responds to ‘corporate social responsibility’ models that seek to improve workers’ conditions from the top-down, by instead taking the lead from workers and their representative organisations in setting the terms and conditions of employment. It is similar to collective bargaining in that it involves a group of workers jointly negotiating their rights, with the difference that it targets companies at the top of supply chains instead of direct employers.
FLEX is a member of the Corporate Justice Coalition, the Ethical Trading Initiative (ETI)’s NGO Caucus, and supporter of the #PayYourWorkers campaign, led by the Clean Clothes Campaign.
