
We expect our suppliers to provide regular employment. This means they must not try to avoid obligations to employees under labour or social security laws through the use of labour-only contracting, subcontracting, home working arrangements, excessive use of fixed-term contracts, apprenticeship schemes or probationary employment terms where there is no real intent to impart skills or provide regular employment.
We also support workers’ rights to form or join trade unions, and collaborate with suppliers to empower workers for productivity and satisfaction. One example is the open dialogue we’ve begun with our Cambodian suppliers and labour groups to give workers effective ways to raise concerns. Going forward, we plan to expand supplier roundtables to other production countries where we have seen evidence of freedom of association issues.
Strong business skills are vital to managing and expanding a small enterprise. In Brazil, many of our suppliers operate small businesses and don't necessarily have the resources to invest in commercial training. We started a Business Management programme with key suppliers in 2014 to build their commercial skills and confidence. Twenty key suppliers completed the five-module programme in 2015, gaining knowledge and practical skills in topics quality, productivity, finance, taxation, and people management.
C&A sees the potential of our businesses and people, so it aims to empower not only the directors of companies, but also the company owners, and the company itself. After we learn in the management course we try to replicate it, not only inside the company, but also to subcontractors and other people who are part of the supply chain.
We’ve had open dialogue on freedom of association with our Cambodian suppliers, the International Labour Organization, Better Factories Cambodia, and the Cambodian Ministry of Labour to help our suppliers give workers effective ways to raise concerns and grievances. Ultimately, we want to help workers approach their employers on pay and working conditions without fear of reprisal.
We held four roundtable discussions with all relevant parties in Cambodia to address this issue in 2015, with approximately one-third of our Cambodian suppliers participating. In particular, we highlighted the importance of developing healthy industrial relations with workers and their unions.
We want to identify alternative and anonymous channels for workers to voice their concerns, so we can better support our suppliers as they identify issues and improve health, safety, labour conditions, and worker satisfaction.
C&A Foundation is partnering with two organizations—LaborVoices and LaborLink—whose mobile phone interactive voice recording technology allows workers to listen to workplace information about their rights and voice their concerns by responding to a survey. With our suppliers, we are piloting LaborVoices to help improve working conditions at factories in Turkey. In Bangladesh and China we are testing LaborLink.
In the first year alone, our team in Turkey enrolled 40% of our production units in the LaborVoices programme, and throughout the year over 27% of workers from the participating factories actually used the channel. In 2016, we will work closely with our production units to enroll 80% of our suppliers' factories in LaborVoices. We hope to use this bottom-up approach to advance supply chain transparency and find alternatives to auditing that can improve working conditions. In the next stage, we aim to assess whether the solutions identified in the process are making positive impacts in the workplace.
Unsere Website ist in Englisch
oder Portugiesisch.
Nuestro sitio está disponible en
Inglés o Portugués.