Detail on Workers Rights 

Wages

minimum standard for suppliers is that workers should be paid the minimum wage in their country/region of operation. It is important to note that many of our suppliers pay above the minimum wage and furthermore there are many suppliers who are investing in the welfare of their employees.

We have now started an initiative to create a country by country “Living Wage Ladder” by benchmarking against current local Industry salaries. This is being done in conjunction with a Labour Rights Consultant.

Freedom of Association

committed to enabling workers in our supply chain to effectively negotiate for their rights and improvements in worker conditions. Our aim is to encourage suppliers through corrective action plans, conferences and sharing of best practice to recognise the benefits of a workforce being able to effectively negotiate for improvements in their working conditions.

As we think the [ETI’s] worker education leaflet is a fantastic tool we have asked the ETI to translate it into local languages (specifically China, India, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh) which we will circulate to ALL our factories through our Regional Offices and during our yearly Supplier Conferences.

We have recently embarked on a project to look at best practice in relation to the ETI Code requirements on FOA throughout the UK and our international supply base.  We will use this research to inform and update our ongoing programme.

Monitoring & verification

We recognise that to make effective sustainable change our suppliers often need to work with local organisations to increase their understanding of their workforces’ needs and to effectively implement change. Currently there is a lack of  knowledge of local organisations who have the necessary skills.  A small number of NGOs are currently involved in the audits of M&S suppliers, however as part of our Plan A commitments we aim to bring more local (in-country) NGOs into our auditing process. We have started this with our Fairtrade cotton supply chain.

Our conclusion

There is no doubting that M&S is prepared to take bold steps as part of its ethical strategy, but we sense that it has not been as ambitious on workers’ rights as it has on, for example, climate change and Fairtrade.  We did not receive a submission from M&S in 2006, and so its write-up here is inevitably better: it sent us a comprehensive 13 pages.

There are things to welcome in M&S’ submission, notably a first step towards understanding wages in its supply chain better, and a commitment to involving local NGOs in some supplier audits.  M&S is certainly doing more than many retailers.  In general, however, we’d like to see more ambition from the UK’s biggest fashion retailer, a brand that so confidently invites us to ‘look behind the label’.

It needs to take the information gleaned from its ‘living wage ladder’ research and move on to finding out what garment workers themselves view as a living wage; it needs better collaboration with local trade unions as well as NGOs, for worker training and for monitoring and verification.  It should tighten up the workers’ rights commitments within Plan A.  Or maybe it does need a Plan B after all?