This was a busy year for ETI, not least because of the work involved in organising a major international conference. But it was also a year when our learning and thinking on ethical trade moved forward significantly. Here we review just three issues that need to inform future work.

Putting workers centre stage

A key lesson from our conference was the need to increase workers’ participation in code implementation. Despite the growing number of companies implementing codes and the number of audits conducted each year, very few workers are aware that codes exist, even in workplaces where employers are making significant efforts to put them into practice. Yet for the impact of codes to be sustainable, workers need to be well informed about codes and the rights they embody, so that they are in a position to protect themselves. This means investing more in educating workers about codes, what workers can do to protect their rights, and involving them more actively in auditing processes.

Understanding supply chains

We have also learnt how important it is to understand the complexity and diversity of global supply chains, the wide variety of which pose different challenges to code implementation. When ETI was first established, we set out broad expectations of how we expected member companies to progress with implementing the ETI Base Code. Several years on, our experience indicates that there is more than one path to good practice, depending on the nature of the supply chain and where a company sits within it.

Forging wider relationships

Thirdly, while partnership between companies, NGOs and trade unions has always been at the heart of ETI’s work, our recent work with informal and marginal workers has taught us the importance of developing wider relationships in order to effect change. For example, addressing abuses of gang labour in the UK required us to forge relationships with producers, employers’ associations, labour providers (agents) and three government departments. Working with a wider group of organisations has also driven home the importance of developing more effective ways of communicating our learning beyond our membership. We have made a good start this year by sharing our learning more widely, but we need to work harder to develop more imaginative and targeted communication tools. This is part of our agenda for the year ahead.

For the impact of codes to be sustainable, workers need to be well informed about codes and the rights they represent, so that they are in a position to protect themselves. This means investing more in educating workers about codes of labour practice.
 

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A key lesson is the need to increase workers' participation in code implementation.