Business Responsibility & Supply Chains

In today's global supply chains upholding fundamental labor standards and protecting worker rights is a complex undertaking. A variety of stakeholders, including governments, employers, employees, and industry have important roles to play. Governments must pass strong laws and effectively enforce them. Workers must be able to exercise their rights to organize and bargain collectively. Employers must comply with applicable laws and regulations. Nothing can substitute the critical roles of government and workers’ organizations, but strong and effective company and industry efforts to protect workers’ rights in their operations and supply chains can promote greater understanding of labor laws and standards. It can also mitigate poor labor practices early and directly to supplement government enforcement, thereby extending limited resources.  These efforts also create avenues for worker-employer communication that build trust, improve industrial relations, and can improve a company’s bottom line.”

Our Role

ILAB takes several approaches to promoting voluntary private-sector action, including:

• Development and dissemination of guidance for companies and industry groups on best-practice social compliance programs;
• Funding for projects that work directly with companies, governments, international organizations and/or civil society groups in countries around the world to implement robust training, monitoring, remediation, and reporting mechanisms;
• Direct engagement with companies and industry groups to encourage increased responsibility for protecting workers' rights;
• Implementation of mandates that provide trade or commercial incentives for companies and industries that uphold fundamental labor standards; and
• Engagement with other U.S. government agencies, international organizations, and worker and employer organizations on the development and implementation of policies on business and human rights.