ETI Annual review 2005/2006 – The power of partnership
Why partnerships hold the key to success
Chair's message
This year we have had unprecedented insights into our member companies’ ethical trade practices. Not only have companies reported to us using our new, more searching annual reporting framework, we have also received the findings of the most comprehensive independent study to date of the impact of codes of labour practice on workers. The ETI Impact Assessment* was carried out by the Institute of Development Studies (IDS).
The IDS study revealed that many workers are benefiting from codes – particularly in health and safety and working hours – but that the pace and scale of change is slow and uneven. Some of the most vulnerable workers, such as migrant and contract workers, have yet to see any concrete benefit. And critically, company purchasing practices – for example, lead times and prices negotiated with suppliers – are undermining suppliers’ ability to comply with codes.
I am heartened that our members are tackling pressing issues such as developing joint approaches to reaching workers at the margins of supply chains – for example migrant workers, homeworkers and smallholders (see Going global: supporting suppliers and local initiatives). I am also encouraged that some members are investigating how to modify their purchasing practices to ease the pressure on suppliers. But despite their efforts, IDS’ findings challenge us all to do much more, and on a greater scale.
“Our work to help bring new legal protection for some 600,000 workers in the UK food industry demonstrates the magnitude of our impact…”
The way forward is clear. Our work to help bring new legal protection for some 600,000 migrant workers in the UK food industry demonstrates the magnitude of our impact when we create and lead alliances of the organisations that collectively have the power to bring about rapid and widespread change (see Creating strategic alliances for change). This review shows clear evidence of our growing ability to catalyse and drive similar joint action on labour issues that are endemic to whole countries or industries.
In May 2006 the UK Department for International Development (DFID) awarded us a Partnership Programme Agreement grant of £2.35 million over the next five years. This gives us new confidence to engage with government on policy, to scale up our work and to channel greater resources into using the power of partnerships to help improve working life for millions of poor people across the globe.
Alan Roberts Chair
* Find out more about the impact of our members’ ethical trade activities on workers in The ETI code of labour practice: do workers really benefit? at:
ETI member companies in action
Analysing corporate members’ annual reports to ETI provides a good indication of the extent of their combined efforts and a flavour of the different activities involved.
- Madison Hosiery sent mandatory, anonymised questionnaires to all its employees to seek their views on the company's ethical trade performance
- Pentland Group held a seminar in China where three suppliers shared their experience of health and safety committees
- Boots invited trade union and workers’ representatives to attend opening and closing meetings of workplace inspections and encouraged their participation in the assessment process
- Sainsbury’s shared ETI’s 2005 awareness-raising poster with 600 of its suppliers
- Co-operative Retail posted the ETI Base Code in local languages on workplace notice boards and organised meetings with workers to explain its provisions
- Levi Strauss & Co. worked with a supplier in Haiti to promote freedom of association.
A list of current members at time of going to press is given on the poster accompanying this review (on the reverse of the printed version).
[See also: current ETI members]
| 26 reporting companies |
£12.4 million of expenditure on ethical trade activities |
299 full-time ethical trade staff |
4,500 hours of training on ethical trade |
9,614 supplier sites inspected |
3 million workers covered by company codes |
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