Every summer, tens of thousands of seasonal workers migrate to agriculture production areas across Turkey. A majority of these workers are from the southeastern Turkey and they travel as family groups moving from crop to crop for six to eight months each year. Often, the children work alongside their migrant parents, contributing to the household income, but at the expense of their personal development.
The Fair Labor Association commissioned two independent external experts – Corinne Adam, an independent consultant, and Lynda Diane Mull, Executive Director and President of the International Initiative to End Child Labor – to conduct a task and labor risk mapping study of hybrid corn and sunflower seeds production in Argentina.
The Jo-In Project was a collaborative effort of six leading international labor rights and code implementation organizations, including the Clean Clothes Campaign (CCC), Ethical Trading Initiative (ETI), Fair Labor Association (FLA), Fair Wear Foundation (FWF), Social Accountability International (SAI), and Worker Rights Consortium (WRC). The Jo-In project focused on enhancing collaboration among these organizations to identify best practices in the field of code implementation.
The PREPARE project is a "top-down bottom-up" approach to improve the efficacy of worker representation in factories in Bangladesh. The project employed qualified local trainers who worked directly with individuals at all levels of the factory organization – owners, managers, supervisors, workers, and worker representatives.
Turkey’s garment and textile supply chain is large and complex. The upper tiers are often difficult to trace, making it difficult to engage workers and support worker rights beyond Tier 1 (downstream) suppliers.
Employers in small and medium-sized enterprises often operate informally and lack awareness of the national or international standards on decent work conditions and child labor. Many of these workplaces have precarious working conditions and pose a high risk for workers.
In January 2012, the Fair Labor Association (FLA) launched a study of soy and corn seeds in Brazil to develop a better understanding of the local conditions, practices and labor standards in the country's agriculture sector. The study was conducted with an independent external expert, and data was collected through meetings with stakeholders including Instituto Ethos, a leading CSR organization in Brazil; and union representatives from Sindicato dos trabalhadores rurais de Minas Gerais in Serra do Salitre and Sindicato de trabalhadores rurais de Uberlandia of Uberlandia.
The ENABLE Project is an FLA initiative targeted toward the agricultural sector. Activities include: agricultural monitoring; remediation; capacity building activities; and stakeholder engagement.
The stakeholder engagement component is an ENABLE initiative that seeks input from local and international experts on agricultural monitoring, remediation and capacity building efforts. These consultations are organized with the overall objective of enhancing the effectiveness and relevance of the work the FLA is undertaking in the agriculture sector.
In June 2013, the Dutch government, civil society organizations, and industry representatives collectively developed an action plan to improve the social, structural, ecological and economic conditions in global garment and textile supply chains.
The HeRmeS-R project was a two-year initiative (2007-2009) supported by the European Commission under the Leonardo da Vinci program and a grant from the Swiss government. Eight European partners joined together in a multi-stakeholder collaborative approach to improve the human resource and CSR standards and policies of subcontractors across many industries. Stakeholders created training programs to equip participants with the knowledge and tools needed to train executive staff.
These programs covered corporate social responsibility broadly, including such topics as:
The Fair Labor Association (FLA) conducted this task and risk mapping study in India in 2004 to assess the labor risks in cottonseed farms, with a focus on child labor; to map potential internal and external workplace monitoring systems; and to map local remedial programs. The study consolidates data from two assessment visits made in April 2004 and October 2004 to Andra Pradesh (AP) and Gujarat, two of the largest hybrid cottonseed producing states in India.
