A coalition of investors with more than $1.4 tn in assets under management is calling for a global crackdown on supply-chain abuse and increased worker safety after a series of deadly accidents at Bangladeshi factories that killed more than 1,500 workers.
The coalition of more than 160 investors, including Trillium, Scottish Widows Investment Partnership, Erste Asset Management and Threadneedle Investments, has issued a joint statement – the Bangladesh Safety Pact – calling for ‘systemic reforms that will ensure worker safety and welfare, and to adopt zero-tolerance policies on global supply-chain abuses.’
The statement, drafted by the Interfaith Center on Corporate Responsibility, follows a series of disasters in Bangladeshi factories, including the May 8 collapse of a sweater factory that killed at least 1,127 workers, a fire in November at a factory that killed 112 and another fire on May 8 that killed several workers at the Tung Hai sweater factory – all in Dhaka.
‘We call on brands and retailers to collectively pledge to implement the internationally recognized core labor standards of the International Labour Organization (ILO),’ the statement says. ‘Further, we expect companies to acknowledge their human rights responsibilities as delineated in the ‘protect, respect and remedy’ framework of the UN guiding principles on business and human rights.
‘These principles affirm the duty of governments to protect the human rights of their citizenry and the responsibility of companies to respect human rights regardless of where they do business, and further, to provide remedy in the case of human rights abuse.’
Specifically, the investors are calling on companies to commit to strengthening local trade unions, publicly disclose the identities of all of their suppliers and divulge the health and safety programs they have in place, as well as their progress in meeting health and safety objectives. They also call on companies to ensure a living wage for workers, to make sure their suppliers have the means in place to address worker grievances and to join the Accord on Fire and Building Safety sponsored by the ILO and others.
The coalition’s demands follow a pledge from a series of retailers, including Marks & Spencer, Inditex and H&M, that they would devote at least $60 mn over the next five years to helping ensure greater safety in factories in Bangladesh.
Besides Trillium and the faith-based investors, the coalition statement was signed by Sustainalytics, UCC Pension Boards, SNS Asset Management of the Netherlands, Matrix Asset Management, First Affirmative National Network, and others. A number of high-profile firms in the US have notably failed to sign up to the Bangladesh Safety Pact, however.
