M&S

Marks & Spencer

Responded to survey: Yes.

MSI involvement: yes, Ethical Trading Initiative [what's this?]

Grade 3.0: Can offer concrete examples of steps to increase wages in the supplier base, but only in a few pilot projects. [what's this?]

Summary

M&S’ work on productivity is gaining in momentum, but the project in isolation offers no guarantee of living wages. M&S’ failure to engage with freedom of association so far has held it back from attaining a higher grade.

Position on living wages

‘We believe that all workers in our supply chains should earn enough money to meet their basic needs, whether they are paid on an hourly basis, piece rate basis or work in the informal sector, such as homeworkers. In addition, their earnings should provide some discretionary income, in line with our Global Sourcing Principles and the ETI base code.’

Position on freedom of association

M&S believes that, ‘Freedom of Association is important as it gives workers the opportunity to voice their opinions and express their views. It can be achieved in a number of ways, including through trade unions or workers committees.’

NB: A ‘workers’ committee’ and a ‘trade union’ are fundamentally different things. When workers’ committees are instituted they often replace genuine worker organisation and the bargaining power vital to real freedom of association efforts is lost. Such an approach remains a fatal weakness in M&S’ work.

Work so far on living wages

A productivity scheme called Model Ethical Factories was completed in 3 factories in Bangladesh.

The programme delivered: productivity training, worker rights training and supervisor/middle management training over the course of 1 year.

Programme planning and the production of training materials happened in partnership with local organisations ‘including an NGO/Social Development company and a business school’ and other consultants from overseas.

‘An anonymous worker survey was carried out in each factory to gather views’ at the beginning of the project. This process was repeated in September 09 at the end of the project.

Work was evaluated based on key performance indicators and an impact assessment was carried out for workers involved.

‘Early measurement of the key performance indicators show that significant improvements can be seen in communication between workers and management and the training has created a more conducive environment for open dialogue.’

Plans on living wages

‘We are implementing new wage structures in each factory to reflect the improvements, and incentive schemes are being developed to further motivate workers to receive additional financial benefits.’

M&S said furthermore that it ‘will be rolling the programme out to remaining factories in Bangladesh throughout the remainder of 2009 and into 2010.’ It also identified India as the next country in which the programme will be implemented, starting by the end of 2009.

M&S committed to share the learning and best practice with the ETI through the living wage project group, and to all ETI members in September.

Other significant information

M&S have developed a buyers’ training course, in partnership with Traidcraft and the Chartered Institute of Purchasing and Supply, to help improve purchasing practices, which will be put in place from Autumn 2009.

In response to reading a draft of this profile, M&S also stated that ‘We are now working with GTZ and the ITGLWF to develop an education programme for workers, senior management and factory owners in order to create environments to allow the right [of freedom of association] to be exercised if wished for by the workers, and to put mechanisms
in place to allow it.’

Our comments

M&S have been working on this programme over several years and although limited to three factories at the moment the impacts of the project are starting to be fed back and it does now seem to have a plan for expansion.

Our concern remains that it is primarily a productivity project and we continue to question whether productivity alone can deliver a living wage. Increased pressure in the workplace, and the concern that most financial benefits bypass workers are just some of our worries regarding this approach.

Although worker interviews did play a part in the evaluation process of this project, worker input had no role in the programme planning. This top down approach to worker involvement seems systematic. All of our partner unions in Bangladesh are aware that M&S is running an Ethical Factories programme in Bangladesh, but none have been able to discover which of their suppliers are included in the programme. This is a vital missing step. The late submitted information on a proposed education programme around freedom of association sounds interesting, but we are unsure to what scale this will be rolled out so we reserve opinion until we’ve seen it implemented.

In a pilot project of three factories, done over a period of three years it may possible for M&S to conduct workers’ surveys and interviews and genuinely monitor whether productivity benefits get passed on to the work force. However, unless M&S take a more pro-active approach to involving workers and their trade unions in the project we question if this can be done on a large scale and whether such a programme will
do anything to address workers’ rights issues.

Last Updated ( Friday, 09 October 2009 )

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