Trade Unions at the European Development Days 2016

The European Development Days (EDDs) is a yearly event organised by the European Commission, which brings together actors from across the development community. For its tenth edition, the EDDs focused on the ‘Agenda 2030 for Sustainable Development’. The two-day event was held on the 15th and 16th of June 2016 in Brussels, Belgium and trade unions were present.

The European Development Days 2016 began with a brainstorming session on how to ensure responsibility within the garment value chain. The session was co-organised by the Friedrich Ebert Foundation Brussels Office, TUDCN and DG DEVCO, the European Commission’s Directorate-General for International Cooperation and Development. It featured four speakers who lead working groups which approached the issue from different perspectives: workers, campaigners, business and policy-makers.

Julius Cainglet, from the Federation of Free Workers in the Philippines lead discussions on how consumer behaviours affect working conditions on the ground. It was highlighted that the use of indirect employment, which has become the norm, facilitates companies further down the value chain to evade responsibility (only 6% of workers are directly employed by 50 top multinational companies). It was observed that the increased mobility that comes with indirect employment means that a company need not relocate but rather just change supplier, increasing the ‘race to the bottom’ effect on labour conditions. Participants agreed that society cannot afford to wait for another Rana Plaza-like tragedy to impose the systemic change needed. Participants also agreed that policy tools already exist, for instance in the form of ILO standards or the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights, but that these should be accompanied of mandatory and enforceable international mechanisms. Another way of promoting better labour conditions would be an increased donor emphasis on labour standards in development projects, and a strict provision for labour standards in trade agreements.

The other discussions were equally as productive and lead to similar conclusions. From the campaigner perspective, Sarah Ditty, from Fashion Revolution lead the talk which highlighted the potential for consumer awareness to be leveraged in order to demand information and responsibility of high street retailers. It was recognised that the vast majority of consumers do not want to impose abusive conditions on workers but simply do not have the time or ability to verify every detail. The role of campaigning is to galvanise that shared sentiment in order to put pressure on value chains to be fairer. Participating in the session were MEP Arne Lietz (S&D, Germany), Antti Karhunen, head of the Private Framework Development, Trade, Regional Integration unit at DG DEVCO, as well as other representatives from EU Institutions, the German Development Institution GIZ, CSOs including Trade Unions, and garment businesses. The topic was wrapped up by Ruth Hoekstra, policy officer at DG DEVCO.

After the welcome ceremony, attended by the UN Secretary General Ban-Ki Moon, a session entitled ‘Combating Forced Labour and Child Labour Through Supply Chain Interventions’ with Jeroen Beirnaert, policy coordinator at ITUC as speaker. During the panel discussion it was highlighted that, in order to keep up with the international functioning of many markets and corporations, social dialogue must also be extended to the international stage in order for key stakeholders to be on the same footing. Another key to ending forced and child labour, modern slavery and human trafficking is to ensure mandatory due diligence across supply chains.

Full article here: http://www.ituc-csi.org/TU-at-EDD16