Many workers, in the UK as well as overseas, are denied their fundamental rights at work and endure dangerous working conditions, struggle to make ends meet on meagre, sometimes pitiful, wages and even suffer physical and psychological abuse. At ETI, we believe this is unacceptable. We exist to promote respect for the rights of workers and to help improve their working conditions. Doing so means harnessing different perspectives to a common purpose.

Our focus is on workers producing goods, such as food and clothing, for consumers in the UK. Companies selling such goods are coming under increasing pressure – from trade unions, NGOs, consumers and investors – to ensure decent working conditions for the people who supply the goods. These companies have typically responded by adopting a code of practice setting out minimum labour standards that they expect their suppliers to comply with.

But companies alone, however well-intentioned, have neither the credibility nor all the necessary experience and skills to define what constitutes ‘good practice’ in the implementation of such labour codes. We therefore aim to bring the combined knowledge and influence of NGOs and the international trade union movement to work alongside these sourcing companies in identifying and promoting good practice. The specific ways in which we achieve this are described on pages 10 - 27 of this report.

Harnessing difference

Although ETI members work alongside each other to achieve common goals it would be a mistake to imply that the membership always speaks with one voice. Our tripartite nature means that there will always be differences in perspective. So we invited our trade union, NGO, supplier and retailer members to give their views on the ethical trade challenge. Their essays make a thought-provoking introduction to this report (pages 4 - 9).

Our tripartite way of working certainly creates its own challenges: harnessing the divergent perspectives of our members to deliver concrete outputs can be a long and fraught process. But one thing we remain convinced about. Ethical sourcing will only make a real difference to workers if we bring together a multiplicity of perspectives to provide the representativeness, knowledge and experience that our challenging task demands.

Ethical sourcing will only make a real difference to workers if we bring together a multiplicity of perspectives to provide the representativeness, knowledge and experience that our challenging task demands.

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ETI's trade union, NGO and corporate members work togther to address working conditions.