Its working groups are a means of developing and sharing best practice; its reporting system opens companies up to scrutiny from other member organisations. But multi-stakeholder initiatives like the ETI, Fair Labor Association and MFA Forum remain tools, not outcomes. The test of a company's commitment is not its membership of forums like these alone, but what use it makes of them.
Multi-stakeholder initiatives: necessary, but not sufficient
The Ethical Trading Initiative (ETI) is an important tool for companies to address workers' rights issues like those covered in this report. ETI is a multi-stakeholder forum for companies, trade unions and labour rights groups to share experiences and concerns, and to work together to solve problems in global supply chains.
All of the companies surveyed have a long way to go to apply the policies and solutions that we know will deliver better wages and working conditions for workers desperately need them. This is despite the many recommendations and best practices developed over the past decade within collaborative forums like the ETI.
Clearly, it's easier for a company to sign up to a pilot project or focus on reporting than is to tackle the substantive issues across its supply base. Pilot projects are only useful for so long: there omes a point at which the learning from them has to be put to use, and it is here that progress from ETI and non-ETI companies alike is frustratingly slow.
