In 2022, the world began to emerge from the chaos of a global pandemic that wreaked havoc on farm and factory workers worldwide. During this transition to “the new normal,” one core question remained: How could FLA members and staff continue to translate uncertainty and change into responsiveness, resilience, and growth, and raise the bar for human rights in global supply chains?
First, we developed and adopted a new strategic plan to guide us through the next five years, building on our existing efforts to drive innovation and improve business policies and practices to benefit workers worldwide.
We also enhanced the Fair Labor Accreditation program for manufacturing and agriculture companies; visited nearly 1,000 farms in 14 countries to assess companies’ due diligence programs and working conditions at the farm level; drove action on living wages in Việt Nam; strengthened enterprise-level grievance mechanisms in Uzbekistan’s cotton industry; continued to transform child protection and responsible recruitment in Türkiye; and actively investigated reported violations of the rights of more than 15,000 workers through Fair Labor Investigations.
We launched a resource to share best practices among university members and strengthened learning opportunities for collegiate licensees. Finally, we rebranded FLA and relaunched our website to better reflect our global, multistakeholder, and innovative work at the intersection of business and human rights.
We invite you to read on and learn more.