Electronics Watch Annual Conference 2017: Ending Precarious Labour – Public Buyers’ Role in Protecting the Rights of Electronics Workers

Last Thursday (December 7th) at Queen Mary University, Electronics Watch held the annual conference in collaboration with Queen Mary University of London, The Business, Human Rights and the Environment Research Group at University of Greenwich and Good Electronics Network.

The conference was open by Bjorn Claeson, director of Electronics Watch and it was follow by a discussion about the power of public procurement in protecting workers’ rights. This key note conversation had the experts Kan Matzusaki from IndustriALL, Kristian Hemstrom from Stockholm Country Council, Sweden and Heather White, Co-director and producer of the film “Complicit”.

The conference had the valuable participation of experts’ speakers that shared their insights about electronics industry and public buyers. The session on precarious labour in the global electronics industry revealed worrying facts in Indonesia, Thailand and India. The research in India by the Cividep, showed that 80% of workers in seven different electronics companies are facing precarious forms of employment.  

Robert Stumberg from Georgetown University Law Center demonstrated in his video conference that regulations on transparency in supply chains do not go far enough to face the current situation of global electronics industry, which makes the work of Electronics Watch be more valuable for companies committed to improving working conditions.  Liz Cooper from University of Edinburgh highlight their Electronics Watch membership and the work that the university is doing on supply chain transparency, which sets a good example for other universities.

In the final plenary, Gale Raj-Reichert from Queen Mary University of London indicated that the unsteady cycles of production in the electronics industry and the short product life for smartphones, contributes to excessive working hours. The ending session of the conference emphasised the importance of the monitoring system suggested by Electronics Watch, which empowers workers to identify their problems and get support from public procurement.

Applying the UK Modern Slavery Act to the Public Sector

Our new article on "Human Rights Risks in Global Supply Chains: Applying the UK Modern Slavery Act to the Public Sector" has been published in the latest issue of Global Policy. In this article Olga Martin-Ortega explores how global supply chains (GSCs) are organised through complex networks which leave workers vulnerable to exploitation and unprotected against abusive labour practices including modern slavery. In the past decade's, attention has focused on business responsibilities for the impact of commercial activities on human rights with little focus on the role of states as economic actors and their duties regarding their own supply chain, including through public procurement. This article analyses the application of the Transparency in Supply Chains provision (TiSCs) of the UK Modern Slavery Act (2015) to the public sector. Since 2016 commercial organisations are obliged to report on efforts to identify, prevent, and mitigate modern slavery in their supply chain. This includes over one hundred higher education institutions (HEIs). This article finds that while most reporting in the first year fall short of what is expected of institutions according to Government guidance the exercise of reporting has initiated an important process of awareness. HEIs face a steep learning curve to develop effective human rights due diligence in their supply chain however, the TiSCs obligation has proved a catalyst for a wider process of understanding human rights risks and responsibilities of the public sector, and more specifically HEIs.

The article is available here. If you would like a copy of the full version please contact us.

The Role of the State as a Buyer under Principle 6 UNGPs

Our submission to the United Nations Working Group on Business and Human Rights is now available as a BHRE Policy Paper. In response to the UN Working Group consultation on “The State as an economic actor: the role of economic diplomacy tools to promote business respect of human rights”, Dr. Claire Methven O'Brien and Dr. Olga Martin-Ortega prepared a detailed working paper which highlights how little consideration has been given to the human rights impacts of the central state and other public bodies in terms of their role as a consumer, by comparison, for instance, to that focused on transnational corporations via their supply chains. This lack of policy coherence, we argue, undermines fulfillment of the UN Framework and UNGPs, both directly, as governments fail to require their own suppliers to respect human rights, and indirectly, as governments weaken the “business case” for companies to respect human rights and due diligence, by failing to send the right market signals and undermine the moral case because they fail to lead by example. The submission addresses the gap by starting to clarify states’ human rights responsibilities regarding public procurement in line with the UNGPs and identifying emerging good practices through which public buyers can fulfil these responsibilities while still meeting their organisational needs. It aims to support the implementation of UNGP6 by highlighting measures to operationalise the state “duty to protect” and the “corporate responsibility to respect” in the context of public procurement. It also highlights the need to integrate human rights into public procurement as essential to the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
The submission presents recommendations for states and other procurement regulators, and other relevant stakeholders, including national human rights institutions (NHRIs), civil society organisations (CSOs), the UN system and  business  associations regarding the further development of public procurement as an element of the obligation to protect human rights in the context of business operations. 

For more information on our work on Procurement and Human Rights check our webpage and the International Learning Lab on Public Procurement and Human Rights.