Turning Challenge into Opportunity - Enhancing Worker Labour Rights Through Supply Chain Collaboration
Authors: Ross Gregory 
Published: November 2019

More than 40 million people around the world are victims of modern slavery, 25 million of them in forced labour (ILO, 2017); most of these working in the supply chains of global business. If we are to achieve the UN Sustainable Development Goal 8 – Decent Work and Economic Growth – and its target to "eradicate forced labour, end modern slavery and human trafficking" - by 2030, businesses and governments must do more to address these issues. In 2014 only 4 countries were taking steps to develop legislation and investigate forced labour in business and government supply chains, in 2018 that had increased to 36 countries.

Aside from being the right thing to do, the commercial case for improving labour rights and worker welfare is compelling. When workers are happy and engaged, they tend to work more safely and efficiently, and the risk of delays and disputes is minimised. To tackle this issue, Petrofac worked with our supply chain partners to understand the realities – and address the issues.

Through Petrofac's due diligence, we know that our main human rights vulnerability is through our supply chain and, more specifically, its employment of low-skilled migrant workers from ‘high risk’ countries. And, of particular concern are the practices of any agents they use, which may include the charging of excessive recruitment fees, unconsented retention of passports and the risk of contract discrepancies during recruitment.

To address potential risks identified through our due diligence, a labour rights and worker welfare programme was implemented. Group wide initiatives such as development and roll-out of Labour Rights and Worker Welfare Standards, were supported at site by a ‘labour rights toolkit’ that included: Supply chain training to highlight why we need to get these issues right.Monitoring across our projects to understand the extent of the issues.Implementation arrangements drawn up collaboratively with our supply chain partners to establish protections for migrant workers, andA programme of oversight to assure compliance.

To date we have seen a progressively improving picture of both awareness and management of the issues on our projects. The Employer Pays Principle is being implemented down the supply chain, ensuring employing companies (not workers) pay for the cost of recruitment, thereby reducing the debt workers incur in their search for work. Retention of passports only occurs with worker consent, and workers have unrestricted access to their documents and freedom of movement. Employment contracts are also in a language workers understand (or that has been properly explained to them), so they are aware of the terms of their employment and more able to assert their rights.

The programme is currently being rolled out across Petrofac. We are increasing our engagement with industry to share good practice and are committed to working in partnership with our clients and supply chain to ensure human rights are respected across our business and we continue to set our projects up for success.