The OECD hosted the Forum on Due Diligence in the Garment and Footwear Sector from 19-22 February 2024 in Paris where different stakeholders i.e. company retailers and brands, practitioners, scholars, trade union representatives and NGOs presented views on human rights and climate change pressing topics on the sector.
Country members of the OECD spend approximately 12% of the overall GDP on public procurement. Its purchasing power and influence on the markets is often not fully deployed or underestimated. The acquisition of garments is crucial for public entities to provide high-quality services to people, they involve from boots for police men and women to uniforms for doctors, and gowns for students. While public buyers are frequent consumers of these commodities, there are also widespread reporting of adverse human rights impacts within garment supply chains. Public authorities have identified occupational health and safety concerns, as well as inadequate wages and excessive working hours for workers, as major risks in their garment supply chains (OECD Pilot 2022). The salaries of many garment-exporting countries fall far below the threshold of a living wage. For example in Bangladesh, workers depend on overtime, which accounts for more than 20 percent of the average workers wages. (Fair Labour 2018). Many more work 60+ hours a week despite the negative effects that such long hours have on their health and wellbeing (Fair Labour 2018). These challenging working conditions are often exacerbated by the unjust purchasing practices imposed by international buyers on factory owners, compelling them to adhere to tighter deadlines and subjecting workers to prolonged overtime.
This context rose the need for a side session to the OECD Forum on Due Diligence in the Garment and Footwear Sectors organised by Swedwatch titled ‘Public procuremement as the missing multiplier for decent work’. Our ESR Laura Treviño-Lozano was invited to speak abour her research on this side session during the 19th of February, and together with Valentina Bianchini attended the plenary sessions on the 21 and 22 of February at the OECD’s headquarters in Paris.
The side session on public procurement was moderated by Lena Diesing, Policy Lead at the OECD. The invited speakers included voices from different stakeholders. The panelists were Nazma Akter, Bangladeshi trade unionist and founder of the Awaj Foundation, Rubana Huq, President of the Bangladesh Garment Manufacturers and Exporters Association and Managing Director of Mohammadi Group, Pauline Göthberg, National Coordinator for the Swedish Regions on sustainable public procurement, and Laura Treviño-Lozano our ESR researching on the enforcement of labour rights through public procurement in global supply chains at the University of Greenwich in the UK.
By building on the experience of academics, public contracting authorities in Sweden and factory owners and workers in Bangladesh, the panel discussed how public buyers can integrate and effectively monitor human rights due diligence requirements in their procurement practices, and how governments can unlock the full potential of public procurers as actors for change. The speakers were asked different questions according to their background and expertise. Here are some of the highlights of the session:
Brands have access to knowing the workers' salaries in the factory, and they know they have a collective bargaining agreement for the workers in Bangladesh. Public buyers can monitor living wage through the brands.
How can buyers monitor working conditions, including the right to living wage for workers in manufacturing countries?
Public buyers are undertaking risks assessments of the supply chains from which they source their goods to be able to identify, address and prioritise human rights risks throughout the supply chain, including at factory level.
How do public buyers conduct due diligence in their purchasing processes?
There is a need for transparency in the supply chain to know "where" supplies, bought by public buyers, are sourced and manufactured, and by "whom", to then be able to ask and monitor "how", so under which labour conditions, including wages.
How can decent work be included in the public purchasing legal processes in practice?
What legislative measures can governments take to make sustainable public procurement the norm?
– We have a CSDDD ready with considerations to public procurement, so to start voting would be a clear way forward to advance on this matter-
Laura highlighted that international organisations like the UN, OECD, and the European Union should start looking at the ways in which they procure their own supplies. There are already examples of this like the one the OSCE guideline on combatting in human beings and labour exploitation in supply chains, which our lead researcher Olga Martin Ortega contributed to develop.
During the plenary session, Valentina Bianchini challenged retailer representatives from Asos and Zalando on how do they manage cost pressures by acknowledging retailers can have a big leverage over brands to push forward resonsible business conduct. But they can also be part of the problem by presuring for cost reductions.
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