Ensuring impact and change

20. What is the best way to monitor progress and effectiveness of implementation of GAIA related actions?  

The GAIA principles have been developed with the aim of preventing GBVH in workplaces. Monitoring their implementation requires multiple approaches, some of which are listed below but all of which must heavily rely on the perspectives of workers and their representatives/trade unions: 

• Collective Bargaining Agreements are the ideal worker-led monitoring mechanism. By virtue of the collective bargaining process workers are at the centre of solutions to prevent GBVH, become/are aware of the concrete safety improvements agreed with management which ensures a high level of awareness of GBVH preventative and mitigative measures. Via their trade union representatives, workers can raise concerns related to GBVH, and trade unions are able to proactively engage with union members and employers about the specific terms of CBAs.
• Other tools which can be used with workers include participatory surveys that are focused on workers’ perceptions of safety and effectiveness of grievance/complaints mechanisms and remediation. This includes participatory gender audits² facilitated by independent gender experts that encourage dialogue with workers, supervisors and management on how GBVH is being managed in the workplace.
• Workplace committees (OHS committees, gender committees, internal complaints committee/anti-GBVH committees) comprising of worker representatives/trade union representatives, management and gender experts are used in many workplaces, often as a legal requirement. With guidance and appropriate training on GBVH and their roles, committees can monitor the implementation of policies and procedures including, overseeing risk assessments, prevention initiatives and awareness raising/training, and specifically in relation to GBVH, handling complaints and investigations.
• Specialist, in-depth assessments conducted by experienced gender experts can also support employers understand the strengths of their current policies and procedures and opportunities for improvement. Such assessments must be conducted with sufficient time and scope for gender experts to build trust with workers and to conduct interviews with workers and community members, where applicable, in safe and comfortable spaces (such as offsite locations) on interview participants on their own terms 

21. What role do social audits and certification play? 

Social audits can support the review of policies and certain practices, e.g. if there is a system in place to assess the policies of sub-contractors. However, they are generally ineffective in detecting GBVH and understanding GBVH risks due to the inherent limitations of audit methodology. For example, 

• Audits provide snapshots of business practice gleaned over one or two days covering a range of topics of which GBVH may feature as one or two sub-topic questions under gender equality or OHS.   
• Audits are structured with limited time for interviews with a limited sample of workers on-site that is not conducive to understanding workers’ experiences in a meaningful way.
• Moreover, workers are also unlikely to trust and disclose sensitive issues or concerns to auditors who are effectively strangers to them. Workers may also fear disclosing issues in an audit for fear of the consequences, such as loss of orders (and therefore affecting their pay and jobs), losing their jobs or facing social ostracisation. 
• Social auditors may not have the GBVH specialist knowledge or gender sensitive approach to adequately assess workplace policies or procedures and interview workers and management. 

Certification standards often do not respond to the root causes that drive human rights risks. The effectiveness of certification schemes has been called into question “by workers, their representatives, activists, and researchers, who argue that certification fails to address the root causes of poor working conditions and low wages”.³  

Several risks faced across food, farming and fishery supply chains are complex and endemic. They require collaborative and inclusive approaches, that enable workers and their representatives to help shape the design, implementation and enforcement of solutions. This is not something that certification has demonstrated an ability to facilitate. Further, as certification systems generally rely on social audits which fall short in monitoring the prevention of GBVH, certification on its own is not sufficient to prevent GBVH. 

22. How do the principles align with the ETI Base Code? 

The principles build on the ETI Base Code, specifically Base Code clauses 2, 5, 7 and 9, whilst providing further guidance on how to adhere to these Base Code requirements.