In recent weeks, the debate surrounding the essential need to protect workers’ rights and provide for effective access to remedy has gained increasing attention again. A continuing lack of legally enforceable complaint mechanisms through which those affected can report and enforce their grievances leads to workers having no safe space to raise their issues, taking to the streets to demonstrate their ongoing curtailment of human rights and labour rights, particularly in jurisdictions where domestic law does not provide sufficient protection of their rights. The current Corona Crisis has worsened already existing hardships and has had grave adverse impacts on workers’ livelihoods.
One of the few international agreements which undoubtedly has achieved material improvement of workers’ labour rights by providing for a comprehensive workers complaint mechanism is the Bangladesh Accord on Fire and Building Safety. The Bangladesh Accord was agreed to in May 2013 in response to the Rana Plaza collapse in Dhaka and is running out on 31 May 2021. This independent, legally binding international agreement between labour unions, brands, retailers, and manufacturers targets the workplace conditions in textile factories in Bangladesh by placing health and safety obligations upon brands to ensure their supply chain manufacturers take all necessary safety measures to prevent fires, building collapses or other accidents.
Another significance of the Accord is that it established a Complaints/Grievance Mechanism through which the workers in the factories covered by the agreement – that is, factories supplying to the Accord signatory brands – can raise concerns about health and safety risks in a safe and confidential manner. By protecting the workers from any form of retaliation upon filing complaints, the mechanism created a genuine level playing field between the factory workers and factory owners. That the Accord constitutes meaningful access to remedy can be seen from the resolution of more than 200 complaints filed by workers and their representatives between 2013 and 2018, and effective and swift measures taken to remediate hazardous factory buildings.
While the Ready-Made-Garment Sustainability Council (RMG-SC), which consists of equal representation of labour unions, brands, and the Bangladesh Garment Manufacturers and Exporters Association (BGMEA), took over the Accord local office’s staff, operations and infrastructure to continue its work in implementing the in-country safety inspections and programs of the Accord, the international agreement running alongside it has helped ensure credibility of the initiative. With the Accord Agreement running out, there is fear among CSOs and workers associations that gains made by improving health and safety standards will be lost as the process will no longer be legally enforceable. To ensure that factory workers continue to have access to remedy, trade unions and CSOs are currently negotiating with brands and the BGMEA to extend the Bangladesh Accord.
Our expertise in GRC as access to remedy specialists shows us that to be effective any successor to the Accord would – again – need to incorporate a complaints mechanism that meets the needs of workers. Design of such a mechanism should be based on an evaluation of what has and has not worked in relation to the existing Accord Complaints Mechanism.
At GRC, we design remedy mechanisms by applying the GRC Access to Remedy Matrix that we developed building on the excellent “effectiveness criteria” set out in Article 31 of the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights (UNGPs). To ensure that our clients develop ‘best in class’ effective grievance mechanisms, GRC follows these key principles:
- BOTTOM-UP APPROACH: Meaningful and effective remedy can only be achieved if grievance mechanisms are designed to meet the needs of vulnerable workers and guarantee that their voice is heard, i.e., taking a “bottom-up” approach rather than a “top-down” approach where a company designs and rolls out its remedy mechanisms without consulting end-users. Instead, effective remedy mechanisms must be designed to meet the context-specific needs of those who will want to use the mechanism.
- ADDRESS POWER-IMBALANCES: Grievance mechanisms must be designed to properly address the power-imbalance between worker and company. Workers need to be protected by confidentiality; be protected from retribution including termination of contract, discrimination or other consequences in retaliation for filing complaints. Mechanisms need to be accessible, built on trust, and address local context issues. Access to remedy for rights violations can only be ensured if mechanisms create a level playing field.
- SPEEDY RESOLUTION: Justice delayed is justice denied. Never more so than for workers where livelihoods are at stake. Remedy for workers must be swift which necessitates clear and predictable timeframes within which remediation processes are carried out. Companies that do not meet the required deadlines should be held to account for non-adherence.
- ENFORCEABILITY AND SYSTEMIC CHANGE: Effective enforcement is indispensable for any grievance mechanism to reflect best practice. It is critical that complaints filed are resolved and that remedies are enforced. Without enforcement, remedies are ineffective and complaint procedures are just window-dressing. Remedy must also lead to systemic change in business practice. If the same grievance issues are coming up time and again and remedy is being provided repeatedly on an individual basis, but business practice is not changing systemically to prevent recurrence, then the remedy mechanism has to be seen as failing.
- EVALUATION AND RE-DESIGN: Any remedy mechanism needs to be monitored, evaluated, and if needed, re-designed in order to ensure that the mechanism implemented actually works for those it is intended for. Evaluation of a mechanism’s design also needs to be done by putting workers’ views at the centre (in the same ‘bottom-up’ way discussed earlier). Evaluation needs to be based on mixed-method analysis of quantitative and qualitative indicators. Anything less risks the mechanism becoming out of step with the needs of its end users and a company being criticised for taking a ‘tick box’ approach to remedy.
In the weeks remaining until the Bangladesh Accord runs out on 31 May 2021, one of the concerns for negotiators will be to ensure that whatever new initiative takes its place, it includes a credible remedy mechanism such as this one that has existed to date – and if anything, only improved taking into account the results of a credible evaluation of the existing mechanism. With the likes of the Clean Clothes Campaign and IndustriALL critical to the negotiations this is likely to be the case as they are ensuring that workers’ voices are at the centre of the discussions in the ‘bottom up’ way we in GRC also advocate.
In light of the current Covid-19 pandemic that has left a multitude of workers and migrant workers in sudden unemployment due to immediate termination of contracts, caused escalation of wage theft, and has led to further aggravation of already prevailing hardships, to list only a few of the consequences, initiatives such as the Bangladesh Accord are arguably only becoming more essential to protect workers’ rights. Ultimately, maintaining and establishing in other sectors and countries such meaningful accountability initiatives like the legally binding Bangladesh Accord with its effective complaints mechanisms is to be commended as a way to improve not only health and safety conditions, but also to be innovated further to become a means through which workers can ensure their human rights are also respected.
With decades of experience, Global Rights Compliance (GRC) works with companies, investors, and organisations to address the potential adverse human rights and environmental impacts resulting from business operations. We work side by side with our clients to help ensure they become leaders among their peers on these issues. Our services include legal advice, consultancy services on policies, procedures and training, global supply chain assessments and due diligence, and designing and implementation of grievance mechanisms.
While we know the law and what you need to do, we also know that real change comes through behavioural change. As such we work innovatively, side by side with our clients in a very practical way to ensure they genuinely become a rights-based company that is also just a better business.
To learn more about our work, please click here. To make an enquiry please email bhr@globalrightscompliance.co.uk.