Business
African Business Leaders Join Global Counterparts To Promote Need For ‘Plan B’
While immediate action by companies is absolutely necessary, their efforts alone cannot achieve a sufficient response. Another Rana Plaza could happen any day and workers around the world remain at risk. Current attempts to address worker safety are too dependent on audit-led approaches. These are incremental at best, and unlikely to bring about the systemic changes needed. To ensure decent work for all, concerted action is required at multiple levels. The UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights provide an overarching authoritative framework for ensuring businesses everywhere are respectful of human rights.
“The lessons of Rana Plaza go beyond the textiles and garment sector, and beyond Bangladesh. The globalization of economic forces will lead to further investments in far corners of the world where work practices are different and regulations are weak or not enforced. States must do more to protect workers but companies, both local and global, have a responsibility to respect human rights and conduct rigorous human rights due diligence to ensure that the lives and security of those working in their supply chains are safe and protected. And when, as in the case of Rana Plaza, there is failure to protect and respect human rights in the workplace then governments and companies must ensure effective remedies, including adequate compensatory payments” says Professor John Ruggie, Former UN Special Representative on Business and Human Rights.
Businesses and their shareholders must play a bigger role in improving factory infrastructure and paying fair wages to workers – recognzing their right to form unions and bargain collectively. They must also put the right safeguards in place throughout their operations and provide training and support to principal suppliers and to all subcontractors to help them meet international standards. This will require long-term business commitments to Bangladesh that will enable shared approaches to addressing these challenges.
And where protection gaps exist, business, unions, civil society, and governments must come together to address abuses by developing adequate remedies that reach all garment factories in Bangladesh without undermining existing legal frameworks and protection mechanisms.
If such levers can be used, we can move much closer to a system that puts inclusive prosperity and long-term sustainability before short-term profits. No worker should ever have to fear for her or his life while on the job. Our inaction has given tacit consent to a system that leaves far too many workers vulnerable in the face of unacceptable risks.
We must move faster to bring about these changes. It will require bold action, courageous leadership and new business models. We all have a role to play. Rana Plaza must not fade in our memory, or become just another tragedy among many – but remain a clarion call for global collective action to protect human rights regardless of the financial cost.
Source: Ventures Africa
