Detail on Workers' Rights 

John Lewis told us in 2006 that, “we recognise that our code sets an aspirational standard [on wages] and we are keen to work with our suppliers and other stakeholders to identify practical ways of implementing it in the future.”  It told us of some,“[p]reparatory work with local partners looking at wage levels” in India.

 

In 2007, it sent us a considerable amount of detail regarding this preparatory work, but in it made only a cursory reference to living wages.  It appears therefore that the living wage remains aspirational for John Lewis.

Here John Lewis responded directly to us:

In last year’s report, we were criticised for not taking adequate steps to promote freedom of association in our supply chain. It is an extremely challenging area and we are working with suppliers on an ongoing basis to improve access for workers to management and improving lines of communication between the two. We have found that issues around freedom of association are, in many of the countries in which we work an inherent part of the local social context and for this reason this area is made even more difficult to tackle.

John Lewis’ approach this year has revolved around a ‘practical workbook’ for suppliers.  This is curious, because our criticism last year was:

Given that the interests of workers and management are often in conflict, written materials and worker representatives are not a sufficient substitute for training by local organisations and the presence of a genuine trade union.

In 2006, we criticised John Lewis for only auditing a portion of its supply base, for using audits from the same sourcing agent that supplies its business, and most importantly for relying on the social audit model without collaboration with local stakeholders.  In 2007, John Lewis responded to the first two of these points, but only to justify itself rather than to give more information.

 

On the third point, it told us that it was involved with the Sedex Associate Auditors Group and a forthcoming working group within the British Retail Consortium.  The former is largely a group of social auditing firms with only a couple of NGOs and no trade unions, and does not say that it aims to involve local stakeholders in auditing oversight.  The latter is a business, not a multi-stakeholder initiative.  Last year’s response implied that, as a Sedex member, John Lewis would be “engaging with key NGO and Trade Union stakeholders,” but we didn’t see any evidence that this had occurred.