Big businesses fail to protect the rights of workers in their global supply chains

EIRIS' latest research identifies corporate breaches of the International Labour Organisation's (ILO) conventions on child labour, forced labour, trade union rights and equal opportunities in the supply chains of some of the world's biggest companies.

Based on EIRIS' Convention Watch research, the report A Risky Business? Managing core labour standards in company supply chains finds that 45% of companies analysed have no policy or management systems in place to protect labour standards in their supply chain and fail to report on the issue.

However, some companies appear to be responding to pressure from investors, NGOs and consumers on supply chain labour standards. 13% of developed world large and mid-cap companies are assessed by EIRIS as high or medium risk for supply chain labour standards and 66% of those companies are from the consumer industry. This industry demonstrates not only the most advanced response to breaches themselves, but is also the most likely to have been accused of such breaches and to respond to such allegations.

Two consumer industry case studies of supply chain allegations are also examined in this report, in relation to Gap and Primark.

- Mark Robertson