As you will have seen from our blogs of the past few weeks, the attention in the UAE on labour standards for migrant construction workers has been immense.

There was a depth of discussion and debate about labour standards over the three days, but the issues that came up repeatedly included:

• What does CSR mean in the UAE and what are the responsibilities of business and government?
• Conditions in accommodation and welfare camps and how to maintain reasonable standards
• Health and safety for construction workers on site
• Training and skills development, especially in times of economic crisis
• Repatriation of workers who have lost their jobs

While discussion is good and necessary, it was great to see the Ministry of Labour announce  two initiatives that will directly impact the lives of workers – the development of a central electronic payment system and internationally recognised minimum standards for worker accommodation across Dubai.

In terms of private sector initiatives, the presentations (x 3!) from Build Safe UAE stood out as a shining light of practical collaboration to address health and safety issues. While the presentations at the GCC summit from the Labour Solidarity Center and the Builder and Wood Workers International union, ensured that the call for free unions and worker representation was also made.

The General Consul of India in Dubai made an important contribution to the debate at the GCC conference by talking about his office’s efforts to prepare workers pre-departure from their home country, monitor and support them whilst they are here and ensure they are returned safely. His presentation can be found here.

The dialogue underway at this week’s conferences reflects the changing tone of the Ministry of Labour here and the recognition by businesses that something has to be done. In Impactt’s perspective, there were two overriding themes, both of which have proved critical in addressing poor labour conditions in other countries:

• The importance of partnership – between business and the governments of both host and sending countries.
• The need for ongoing transparency and openness – admitting the problems and discussing the solutions in an open forum is a new thing in the UAE and we need to see more of it!

Impactt applauds all actors in the UAE for taking the first steps on the road to improved labour standards. We also encourage them to look at the work being done in the US and the UK, who face similar issues, and learn from their experiences – and mistakes!

Author: Jaana Quaintance

There were three themes that emerged from the discussion:

• The complexity of ethical decision making when the demands of overseas markets conflict with the demands of domestic markets.
• Pro-poor business and how retailers’ attempts to manage supply chain ethics through setting demanding labour and environmental standards can inadvertently drive small-scale producers out of global supply chains.
• The challenges of learning from, and effectively governing, global supply chains.

Of particular interest were the papers given by Michael Blowfield and Bill Vorley. Martin Cooke’s presentation on a new agenda for the ETI was both fascinating and important.

Michael Blowfield’s paper discussed the circumstances under which businesses can play a positive role in development. He suggested that businesses are increasingly seen as agents of development, but the consequences of businesses playing this role were unknown. Bill Vorley reported on the Regoverning Markets project analysing growing concentration in the processing and retail sectors of national and regional agri-food systems and its impacts for rural livelihoods in developing countries. He argued that small-scale agriculture, which supports the livelihoods of the majority of rural poor, is poorly prepared for these changes.

Martin Cooke outlined a new agenda for the ETI and a fresh strategy for 2009-2011. The six new priorities for the ETI will be:

1. Better governance of the workforce (through promoting collective bargaining, as well as promoting better HR policies in the workplace).
2. Working towards a living wage
3. Integrating Purchasing Practices
4. Tackling discrimination in the workplace
5. Focussing improvements on the most vulnerable workers
6. Improving audit practice.

The conference was a great opportunity to step back from the day to day activity of advising businesses on their ethical trade strategies, to investigate the broader trends which influence our work. Impactt looks forward to seeing further outputs from this conference.

The study looks at corporate ‘complicity’ in the actions of a state or other actor against the citizens of a country, and the idea that as social actors, companies and corporations should be working to prevent such actions; the very idea that underpins the concept of Corporate Social Responsibility. But the concept has thus far largely been a theoretical one.

However, there have been cases of corporations being held to account; the ICJ report cites the examples of senior company officials being convicted of war crimes for supplying poisonous gas to the Nazis and enslaving workers in their factories, and the increasing use of the Alien Tort Claims Act to bring cases against American corporations acting abroad.

But the ICJ have considered the concept of complicity in a global context, asking when and how companies could be considered to be complicit in the human rights abuses that are occurring in the world today. Their answers to these questions may surprise some, although they are based on fundamental concepts of law and morality.

The ICJ states that where a company’s conduct enables, exacerbates or facilitates gross human rights abuses, where a company knows or can foresee that this is the case, and where there is proximity to the perpetrator, the company could be held legally liable, both in civil and criminal law, nationally and internationally, for those human rights abuses.

In terms of labour standards and the supply chain, the IJC states that where there is proximity to the supplier or other actor who is perpetrating the human rights abuses and where it is foreseeable that the policies or actions of the corporation could exacerbate, enable or facilitate the abuses; the corporation could be liable.

Actions or policies could include pricing, lead times, paying specific types of taxes, or not acting on previous allegations or findings regarding a particular supplier. The proximity of the supplier to the buying company is important, but it is perfectly possible for a company to be held liable if they are aware of issues in a particular region and do nothing to alleviate them.

The ICJ limits its discussion to gross human rights abuses such as torture, slavery and child labour; but the theory is applicable to other abuses such as low wages, high hours and sub-standard health and safety, all of which are included in international human rights frameworks. The ICJ provides guidelines for corporations on how to change their behaviour to avoid complicity, and the current methodology in the CSR field also provides a good framework.

Although the impact of this report will not be clear until cases are brought and examples begin to provide the structure through which corporations are held to account in particular countries or internationally, Impactt believes that the report provides further pressure on companies to address the way they trade.