Proceedings of the Standing Senate Committee on
Human Rights
Issue 19 - Evidence - June 18, 2015
OTTAWA, Thursday, June 18, 2015
The Standing Senate Committee on Human Rights met this day at 8 a.m. to monitor issues relating to human rights and, inter alia, to review the machinery of government dealing with Canada's international and national human rights obligations (topic: Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) and garment workers).
Senator Mobina S. B. Jaffer (Chair) in the chair.
[English]
The Chair: Honourable senators, welcome to the thirty-seventh meeting of the Second Session of the Forty-first Parliament of the Standing Senate Committee on Human Rights.
[Translation]
The Senate has given our committee the mandate to examine issues relating to human rights in Canada and abroad.
[English]
My name is Mobina Jaffer, I'm from British Columbia and I'm the chair of the committee. Before I continue, I will ask the members to introduce themselves starting with the deputy chair.
Senator Ataullahjan: Salma Ataullahjan, Toronto, Ontario.
[Translation]
Senator Eaton: Nicole Eaton, from Toronto, Ontario.
[English]
Senator Eggleton: I'll make it three from Toronto. Art Eggleton.
Senator Hubley: Elizabeth Hubley, Prince Edward Island.
The Chair: Garment manufacturing is an important source of jobs in the developing world. The great flexibility and decentralization of that industry, together with its generalized recourse to subcontracting, complicate the implementation of adequate health and safety standards.
[Translation]
In many garment exporting countries such as Bangladesh, India and Vietnam, thousands of salaried workers are exposed to dangerous working conditions and other risks to their health and safety.
[English]
On April 24, 2013, Rana Plaza, an eight-storey building containing five garment factories located on the outskirts of the capital of Bangladesh, collapsed, killing approximately 1,127 workers and injuring thousands. This was the worst of a series of fatal accidents that took place in the garment manufacturing industry in Bangladesh. Among these were also the November 2012 fire where over 100 people were killed, and the fire in October 2013 where there were 7 dead and 50 injured.
[Translation]
The private sector has human rights obligations, in the workplace particularly. In many communities throughout the world, employees have obtained the right to work in safe and healthy conditions, to receive sufficient wages, and to have reasonable work schedules.
[English]
When workers' health and safety are not protected, when wages do not allow for a reasonable standard of living, and when workers are intimidated for trying to unionize, a number of rights recognized in international human rights conventions to which Bangladesh is a party are engaged.
Unfortunately, although Bangladesh has ratified a number of international human rights conventions such as the ILO's Labour Inspection Convention 1972, the Rana Plaza collapse and other similar events demonstrate that there is significant room for improvement and implementation of effective enforcement is still required.
The committee is studying the situation because Canadians benefit from the cheap garments that these factories produce. We are looking at Canada's corporate and social responsibilities.
To begin our hearing today, I welcome, from the International Labour Organization, Mr. Dan Rees, Director of Better Work.
Mr. Rees, thank you very much for making yourself available today. We are very looking very forward to hearing from you today and, just so you know, we are going to continue this study when we return and we hope in the future also ILO will work with us.
I understand you have some remarks, so I will ask you to start.
Dan Rees, Director of Better Work, International Labour Organization: Thank you very much, Madam Chair and distinguished members of the committee. It is a privilege to receive the invitation to appear today. I welcome the opportunity to discuss workers' rights and the global garment industry, as well as the ILO and Canada's role in improving working conditions.
The annual International Labour Conference of the International Labour Organization negotiates and adopts minimum international labour standards in instruments we call conventions which sovereign states ratify into national law. The ILO has a supervisory mechanism to monitor government compliance with these treaty obligations and to report publicly on whether these obligations are being met.
The ILO also supports its member states with an extensive program of technical assistance in order that they are more able to implement these conventions and significant elements of this technical cooperation focus on global supply chains and the garment sector in particular.
The ILO is grateful for the support and partnership of Canada, which is among the ILO's top 10 donors. Through employment and social development, Canada is contributing to ILO's work on the labour dimensions of international trade and economic integration in seven countries with which Canada has bilateral trade agreements. And through the Department of Foreign Affairs, Trade and Development, Canada is supporting an ILO portfolio of some $30 million U.S. on promoting employment and skills for young people in Morocco and Egypt and on improved labour migration in Southeast Asia, as well as the joint contribution with the Netherlands and the U.K. on the ILO's program to support reform in the garment sector in Bangladesh.
Given your opening remarks, Madam Chair, I note that the committee's discussion has touched on Canada's support for reform in the ready-made garment industry in Bangladesh. So if I may, I could just start with some update of progress and some of the challenges ahead with respect to the work in Bangladesh.
Firstly, and I think positively, the ILO welcomes the recent news that all the funds have been raised for the payment of fair compensation to the victims of Rana Plaza. Final payments should be made in the weeks ahead, and I think this represents a significant achievement and a very positive example of the industry working together.
With that said, I think it's important that the national employment injury scheme is now established in Bangladesh, learning from the lessons of providing compensation to victims of recent disasters, and the ILO is engaging with its constituents in Bangladesh and donor partners in pursuit of that goal.
A priority following the Rana Plaza disaster was, of course, to ensure factory safety, building safety and fire safety, and by the end of last month around 80 per cent of the export-orientated factories in the industry have been inspected for structural safety, for wiring safety and for fire safety.
While relatively few factories have been closed — the number is around 32 — many more have been kept open by reducing very significant safety risks. So I think we can say that in the factories in Bangladesh, or 80 per cent of them, risks have been significantly reduced since the Rana Plaza collapse. We remain focused on completing the remaining 20 per cent of factory inspections and that does require the government's cooperation to verify that factories that claim to be closed are indeed closed and to deal with those factories which are not co-operating.
On the legislative environment, there have been some improvements since the Rana Plaza collapse. The amendments to the Bangladesh Labour Act in 2013 provide, for example, for the establishment of occupational health and safety committees and make it somewhat easier for trade unions to register.
Since the amendments, the number of trade unions in the sector has risen from around 130 to 450. However, there is certainly room for improvement. The implementing rules, which are required by the Bangladesh Labour Act, are now needed and they need to be published without delay.
Further legislative changes are needed to advance the effective implementation of International Labour Organization conventions 87 and 98 that deal with freedom of association and right to collective bargaining. And workers in export processing zones need to have the same rights and protections as those outside the zones. The EPZ Act, which is currently being reviewed and finalized, should ensure this.
The reforms have improved the capacity of the regulatory authorities. The department for inspections for factories and establishments is now better resourced and more professional. The number of labour inspectors has increased from around 90 to over 280, and most of these have been trained by the ILO and other partners.
The fire service has also boosted its number of inspectors from 55 to 265, and progress has been made to ensure these regulatory bodies are more coordinated in the follow-up from the safety inspections.
Looking ahead, I think we see the need to ensure that the regulatory and oversight mechanisms can ensure a safer working environment once the external support — the intensive external support from our partners — fades, as it will do with the accord and the alliance, both of which are due to end in 2018.
We're seeing some initial steps towards making better workers' rights. The Department of Labour has introduced a hotline for workers to complain and established an online trade union registration system, both in March of this year. The hotline has registered some 1,500 calls in its first six weeks. But, again, more needs to be done for the realization of freedom of association and to create the trust, confidence and social dialogue in the industry. Anti-trade union discrimination and unfair labour practices must be systematically addressed where they arise and a credible dispute resolution system needs to be developed in order to deal transparently with disputes.
I'll turn, if I may, to the Better Work program. Better Work is a partnership between the International Labour Organization and the International Finance Corporation. It's a global program of those two international institutions to improve working conditions in the global garment industry and to improve competitiveness. Some observations may also be of interest to the committee.
Better Work engages at a factory level to assess compliance with international labour standards and national labour law and to provide advisory training and support at factory level to make improvements. The program operates currently in around 1,300 factories in Cambodia, Haiti, Indonesia, Jordan, Lesotho, Nicaragua and Vietnam — many markets that the Canadian companies source from — and we're establishing a program in Bangladesh.
Assessing factory compliance allows Better Work to benchmark progress made in improving working conditions. At a baseline, the most common areas of non-compliance found tend to be in occupational safety and health, such as handling of hazardous chemicals, excessive heat and noise, emergency preparedness, as well as working time and social security issues.
Since the program's establishment, compliance has improved steadily across most of the conditions in all of the countries where we work.
For example, in the last year, in Indonesia, compliance with working environment and welfare facility indicators has increased by 25 per cent and 18 per cent respectively. In Vietnam, compliance with occupational safety and health management systems has improved by 26 per cent, and the factories are 25 per cent more compliant on chemicals and hazardous substances handling than they were when the program began. These kinds of results are typical of the program.
The impact of Better Work is assessed by academic institutions that gather statistically relevant data independently of Better Work. A key finding of the Better Work program is that decent work is not only good for workers but it's good for business too.
Recent research in Vietnam demonstrates that the profitability of garment factories increases as working conditions improve. Profitability itself is driven by increased productivity among workers in better working environments and the financial benefit is accrued by the factory and shared with the workers in the form of higher wages.
As a last remark, I think importantly, improvements in compliance translate directly into workers' enhanced well-being and have a dramatic effect on the country's social and economic development.
For example, we know from our research that a 5 per cent improvement in compliance to labour law at a factory level is associated with a 10 per cent increase in worker income and a 9 per cent increase in the remittances that migrant workers send home, which has many benefits, including improvements in workers' health.
With that, Madam Chair, I close and invite any questions during the discussion.
The Chair: Thank you very much for your presentation. Many of us have questions for you, but I just wanted a clarification on what you mentioned about the International Finance Corporation. How is that set up, and who funds it?
Mr. Rees: Thank you. Better Work is a partnership of the ILO and the IFC that is constituted in a cooperation agreement that both organizations signed in 2009. As director of the Better Work program, I report to a joint management committee of both organizations that ultimately make the strategy decisions of the program, and both organizations accept responsibility for resource mobilization and supporting the program to develop the people and the resources to implement its objective. So it's a partnership that's run jointly.
In terms of funding, we have a number of funding sources. The global program — so that's the global partnership — the biggest donors are the Swiss, the Netherlands, Denmark and the United States of America, and country-level programs are supported by indeed those donors, as well as other donors. For example, Canada supports the Bangladesh program together with the United Kingdom and the Netherlands.
We also have a donor replacement strategy, because we provide a public good, as I reflected in my remarks, as well as a private good. We do charge businesses for participation in the program. It is our intention over time in the big Asia programs to replace donor funds with revenue from business, and we are quite well along that path in most of the Asia programs.
The Chair: One of the things we have been quite concerned about is compensation. We know that $30 million has been put into the fund. Hopefully people will be compensated.
I understand $10 million has been disbursed, but there is still $20 million to be disbursed. You have people on the ground obviously. Are you satisfied that this $20 million will be distributed fairly? Can you give us some idea of how it will be distributed to make sure all those who are injured and families that have lost their loved ones will be compensated fairly?
Mr. Rees: Certainly. Just to clarify, the Rana Plaza Coordination Committee is an initiative of all stakeholders in the industry. It is joined by the Government of Bangladesh as well as the manufacturers, the trade unions and NGOs, as well as international brands and trade unions. The ILO was asked to act as its neutral and independent chair and to establish this trust fund.
From that position, I can make the following remarks: Currently the arrangement, which covers all the workers in the Rana Plaza disaster, has distributed 70 per cent of awards. There are some exceptional cases, but almost all awards have been calculated and disbursed at 70 per cent. The remaining funds that have been raised recently will allow the committee to disburse the remaining 30 per cent of funds that were calculated, as well as some other payments, for example, for long-term medical care.
The committee set up a claims administration service that is overseen by three commissioners: Dr. Mojtaba Kazazi, the former UN Commissioner for Compensation; and two judges of Bangladesh who oversee the integrity of the scheme.
There have been a number of partnerships developed with NGOs in order to provide counselling and follow-up so that, in the best efforts of the committee, they can understand the needs of the claimants; to ensure, as they have, that all claimants have bank accounts and that funds have been paid; and then to provide the ongoing care and referral services that may be needed, particularly for those who have long-term medical needs.
It's through this network of NGOs and support services that this temporary arrangement is intending to provide that ongoing care.
Senator Ataullahjan: Thank you for your presentation this morning. The Better Work program works alongside the Bangladesh government. How open are they to your suggestions?
Mr. Rees: I think it's fair to say that the Better Work program is received with a lot of enthusiasm from the Bangladesh government and indeed the other constituents. We've been engaging with them now for a period of some three years, explaining the benefits of the program but also how we operate, and I think I would characterize that relationship as pretty warm, pretty open.
I will say that, before the Better Work program can become fully operational in Bangladesh, we do need to have these implementing rules. The structure of the law in Bangladesh creates a more general law and then creates the need for more detailed implementing regulations. For us to go into workplaces and assess their compliance, we need to know what the rules are. Those rules are currently being finalized, but we need them to be published.
Our engagement so far has been a bit of a warm-up exercise, if I can characterize it like that. We've had plenty of time to explain ourselves to the factories and the workers' organizations and the government, but the acid test comes when we start to do factory assessments, when we ultimately make those public and when we do our advisory work. That's the phase we're just about to get into, hopefully when we get these implementing rules in the next few weeks.
Senator Ataullahjan: An overwhelming majority of the garment workers in Bangladesh are women. How have you approached that? Were the women consulted?
Mr. Rees: We had a long consultation period prior to establishing our program and our process for consulting is through workers' organizations and employers' organizations. To the extent that those organizations represent women workers and engage with them, then, yes, we certainly have.
Women are a strong focus of our program. We work in an industry where 80 to 85 per cent of the workers are women and we measure the impact of our program through a gender lens in order to determine what impacts there are for women and how to improve those. We have many protocols in place in terms of how we carry out our work and in terms of the need for gender balance in our teams and specialist training to engage with women workers, some of whom are vulnerable, in order to gather information and give advisory services.
I hope that answers the question, but I can go into more detail about the gender analysis that we do if that's helpful.
Senator Ataullahjan: No. What I would like to know is: You speak of working with organizations. Are there any women in those organizations who can put forward women's views and women's issues?
Mr. Rees: Yes. I think yes is the short answer. Certainly, for example, I have personal experience, but we've also engaged with workers' organizations that have women leaders, women stewards, women officials who speak to the position of women workers in the industry. When we work at a factory level and do intensive work with the factories, as we do, it's our practice to support the selection of worker representatives, to engage with them and to encourage gender balance through our work.
Yes, the program is very focused on women's issues. Wherever we can, we engage with organizations that have expertise and knowledge to be able to do that.
Senator Eggleton: Thank you very much for your progress report. It certainly indicates that there is a lot of advancement in this whole area, but the challenges are still formidable, as I think you would recognize. We have companies doing business in places like Bangladesh under the situation of globalization, the desire to keep their costs down because of competition. That's a formal motivator. Keeping the cost down is, unfortunately, more of a motivator for these companies than corporate responsibility is.
On top of that, there are the inadequate local laws, country laws or enforcement, not to mention intimidation, particularly for those who try to form unions.
Let me ask you about a couple of things. First, you mentioned a hotline. How confident are workers in using that hotline? Because they are going to be afraid of being exposed and retaliation being carried out. You mentioned that 1,500 people have used it, but just how effective is that hotline?
My second question on this deals with unions. You may have given us a statistic on union formation, but I don't recall you doing that. Could you tell me how that is advancing?
Mr. Rees: Certainly. On the hotline issue, I'm not sure how robustly I can answer that question. The hotline is in progress because the constituents in Bangladesh agreed that they would trial that as a technique, along with many others. It's a pilot project, and the purpose is to answer the exact question that you asked.
My long experience of engaging with the garment industry tells me that workers only call a hotline if they're confident that their issues are going to be resolved and that they're not placed at risk from doing it.
I think we need to evaluate what kind of complaints have come through in the first six weeks and how those are being used. I think that's the only fair comment I can give in this particular instance right now.
Of course this is only one technique and it was being trialed in order to increase the atmosphere in which workers' voices can be raised. It's not a substitute for representative organizations, trade unions and workers' organizations that are there to protect workers and advance their rights through collective bargaining, through industrial relations. I think that needs to be made clear.
To answer your question directly about the number of unions in the sector, that has gone from 130, which was the figure at the beginning of 2013, to 450 at present. So there's been an increase in the number of unions.
The reforms that have been implemented during that time have been some amendments to the Bangladesh Labour Act, which make it easier for unions to register, but also the revision of the process by which trade unions register and the decision making being made more open and transparent, which is generally regarded to have removed some political interference in the process of trade union registration.
I think that's the process. I would agree with your synopsis that this is progress but limited progress for now and that there is more to do.
Senator Eggleton: The G7 leaders recently met in Germany and apparently committed to supporting a program called Vision Zero Fund. This would be established in cooperation with the ILO, with the aim of preventing and reducing workplace deaths and serious injuries. Tell me more about that fund, the objectives of it, how it will advance the agenda that we're talking about in terms of garment workers.
Mr. Rees: Okay. This was an initiative championed by Germany as part of their presidency and one of a number of initiatives that the presidency has set out on the whole agenda of supply chains and the responsibility of business and other actors with respect to working conditions in supply chains. Vision Zero is so-called because the vision is to reduce accidents in the workplace to zero. It is intended as a fund to which different member states contribute, to which the private sector contributes, and that is a trust fund for the development of new strategies, strategies that can impact, at scale, improving safety and health in less developed countries with export-led growth strategies. At the moment it is an idea very much under development. It is being consulted within the G7 grouping, but one that we have every confidence will be defined over the summer months, by the October period. Its vision is to try to get to scale to drive collaboration and to back those strategies that can really make a big difference in terms of reducing accidents in those particular industries. It is not specific to the garment industry. I think the intention is to go to other industries and to develop something that has legs and runs for some years to come.
Senator Eggleton: What is the level of the funding commitment made by the G7?
Mr. Rees: The funding commitments have not been finalized. There have been some initial commitments made. I'm hesitating to tell you because I don't know whether those have been made public, but I can undertake to get back to you with whatever information is public or, indeed, to keep this committee updated as that information becomes public, sir.
Senator Eggleton: Thank you very much.
Senator Eaton: This is not a black and white question. With all these reforms that the world seems to want to — and especially you — put on Bangladesh to make conditions for workers safe and appropriate, how far do you think the Bangladesh government wants to actually go before they will feel that they're becoming uncompetitive as a country for fast, cheap fashion? In other words, people are already turning to Cambodia, Vietnam and Burma. Is this a concern of the Bangladeshis or do you think they really have intentions of trying to bring their labour standards up?
Mr. Rees: It's difficult and, indeed, I can't speak for the Bangladesh government or the Bangladesh industry. It's a vast industry, of course, which employs some 4 million workers in the export sector. But let me say this: I think there is certainly a strong mood for reform in some parts of the industry and there is resistance in other parts of the industry. There is clearly a fear that is often expressed that improvements in working conditions and in workers' rights could drive costs that could make the industry uncompetitive. This is not just a fear I hear in Bangladesh; it's one I hear around the world.
It's there, but I think it's also true that Bangladesh is a country with some of the lowest labour costs in the global industry and I think it's clear from recent developments and disasters that you can't compete simply on the basis of low cost without taking due account of law, of international standards and the demands of the international market for decency.
We are seeing a very strong push from many of the source markets, including Canada, the U.S. and Europe, for more transparency in how clothes are made and a greater focus on decent work and other issues too.
This demand for improvement is very much part of the competitive edge in this industry and it's becoming more so. If you look, for example, at Bangladesh, over 200 global brands have joined the Bangladesh Accord, almost the entire industry in North America is engaging through the alliance. This is a further sign that the drivers at the top to industry want to ensure there's safety and health at work and there is more incentive for good working conditions. The trick is to articulate that in terms of price and competitiveness within the industry.
My second response is this: Our evidence from the Better Work program shows clearly that those companies in our program that have better working conditions are more profitable. For example, of companies in Vietnam, those factories where workers say they're fairly treated, they're free from discrimination, that they feel safe at work and they know what they're supposed to be paid and they're paid that, those are the factories that are 7 per cent more profitable than those factories where workers say that's not true.
In fact, there is a competitive edge to doing decent work and doing it well. It might sound counterintuitive, but there's a growing body of evidence that it's good for business in the longer term.
Senator Eaton: I don't disagree with you. I am wondering, though, several years ago there was certainly a campaign in North America — and I don't know whether it was in Europe — about blood diamonds. It started I think with Harry Winston in New York who started buying Canadian diamonds, that these were not blood diamonds. Some people consciously went out and started looking for Canadian diamonds as opposed to blood diamonds, i.e. South African diamonds.
As an international organization, what if you had a brand that you —
The Chair: I just want to correct that. Blood diamonds are not from South Africa but Sierra Leone.
Senator Eaton: Sierra Leone? I'm sorry about that. But you got my point.
The Chair: Yes.
Senator Eaton: What if there was a brand or a sticker that you could give to manufacturers in all of those countries that had good labour standards that would help the consumer? So there's a T-shirt here for $4 that doesn't have the sticker but there's a T-shirt here for $5 that has the sticker. Would that help put pressure on countries like Vietnam, Cambodia, Bangladesh and Mumbai?
Mr. Rees: It's a very interesting question and it's one that the industry has asked a number of times before. I think the experience to date is that brands are reluctant to seek enhancement of their brand and reputation on the issue of labour rights. Where that has been done, those tend to be niche products that speak to a niche market.
At the moment that idea has not gained traction in terms of becoming mainstream. One of the main reasons is that many of the brands fear that there is a significant gulf in the expectations of their consumers and the reality is that is a very poor supply chain that perhaps they don't control as well as they should. There's a gap that makes it hazardous for them to make this idea mainstream.
For the moment, the most productive strategies are likely to be more supply side than demand side. There is push, in some pockets, for standards to be put on labels and we have to see how they develop. Certainly the focus of the International Labour Organization and many within the industry has been to try and strengthen the adherence to good working practices as a condition of doing business, to almost make it pre-competitive. So our focus has been very much on trying to raise the floor, on trying to create a stronger enforcement environment and trying to encourage an environment in which civil and political freedoms come to the fore and workers can organize because we think that it's predominantly a supply side problem. Also, the consumer, dare I say, is somewhat duplicitous and certainly and indignantly expects good working conditions but also demands, as has been said previously, a very competitive price. Those two things are not joining up yet in a clear demand side proposition for the majority of the industry.
Senator Hubley: Good morning, Mr. Rees. Thank you for your presentation. Last week we heard from Bob Jeffcott from the Maquila Solidarity Network. He told the committee — and I will give you his direct quote:
. . . self-regulation in the private sector social auditing model has failed to fill the regulatory gap left by governments that are either unwilling or unable to enforce their labour standards.
Would you comment on whether you feel this is true? If so, what can we do about it?
Mr. Rees: Let me answer your question directly. I think Bob Jeffcott's quote is insightful and accurate. The experiment with self-regulation in the sense of codes of practice that are voluntarily implemented in supply chains in the manner they have been has not driven the kind of improvement that was intended, expected or, indeed, demanded. There is wide recognition in the industry that simply relying on these voluntary social audits is not a productive way forward.
So what would we intend to do about it? If I revert back to my experience in Better Work, we do, of course, use this tool of assessing factories' compliance. We do make the compliance results available to the factory and to the brand and increasingly disclosing that information publicly. But we think it is only one tool amongst many.
The purpose and the power of corporate social responsibility is, yes, to act and to have strong due diligence in the supply chain. We need a lot more transparency about that and a lot more openness about what conditions are being found and what improvement is being made. That would help a lot. The best form of verification about what is happening in factories and facilities is to be more and more open about the reality that's going on and for brands to be clear about who they're supplying from. I do think that would help.
From the ILO's perspective, we choose to work with global brands and attempt to harness the commercial influence of supply chains because we also want to build stronger governance in the industries where we work. I don't think the scrutiny of multinational companies is a substitute for good law that's well enforced, for strong industrial relations and for social dialogue.
Our intention in the Better Work program is to harness those influences in order to deliberately increase those outcomes. The sustainable solution for Bangladesh, Vietnam, Cambodia and other places has to be the industry encouraging stronger law that is better enforced, more transparency and stronger industrial relations. These are the things, in the end, that 95 years of the ILO has shown really work for business and for workers.
Senator Hubley: We had also heard from the Solidarity Center and we were told that there's no substitute for direct worker voice in order to advance workers' rights, like to form unions or to undertake collective bargaining. I believe in your previous response you did certainly support that.
How realistic would it be to push for workers' rights, to unionize in every country where Canadian companies are operating?
Mr. Rees: Certainly there's no substitute for workers' voice and for workers choosing their own organizations, and the ILO's international conventions certainly reflect that value.
In the end, though, it is for workers to choose whether they want to be represented by a trade union and it is for unions to bargain with employees in order to achieve collective bargaining agreements.
I would say that it is absolutely right and proper that nation states should insist on the conditions of freedom of association and right to collective bargaining. The environment is there for workers to organize and to belong to those organizations they wish to and that employers' organizations and workers' organizations both have the freedoms to do that.
The reality is that in many garment-producing countries, those freedoms don't exist or are severely inhibited. The push from responsible member states should be to open up the civil and political freedoms to enable workers to be part of the organizations they choose to represent, but the job of unionization belongs with workers and with trade unions.
The Chair: Mr. Rees, I have a few questions of you.
One of the things you have said is that there has been an increase in trade unions, which is a good thing, but I'm not so sure that should be a way to judge, because a few trade unions that are strong may have more power than many small unions. I would like you to comment on that, because just to say "more unions'' is not necessarily more rights for workers. We need stronger unions rather than many weaker unions.
I would like your reflection on that, please.
Mr. Rees: The figures I gave were pertinent to Bangladesh, where there has been an increase from a very small base in the number of factory-level unions. These were the number of factories where the women and men have chosen to register their trade union in the environment of the reforms that have taken place.
You are absolutely right that these represent many unions at factory level. The trade unions in Bangladesh do complain that their ability to federate and join factory-level unions in single federations is difficult and inhibited. Certainly that is one of the features of strong trade unions, in that there is unity within the workers' movement — that's good for the workers — but also employers around the world frequently say they want to deal with one, possibly two, partners and not many fragmented organizations.
I agree with your statement. To reiterate, there have been some improvements in the environment in Bangladesh. We have seen some growth in the factory-level unions, but there's a long way to go, both in terms of future reform of law, if it's to meet the requirements of the international core labour standards, and there's a long way to go in terms of practice before the environment is truly open and free for workers to organize as they wish.
The Chair: This past Monday we heard from a representative of Human Rights Watch who commented that Better Work inspects and monitors larger factories but not the smaller factories that are subcontracted. Is that still the case? Do you have plans to begin inspecting smaller factories?
Mr. Rees: That observation is by and large true. Our strategy at this stage of our development is to engage with the primary exporting units. In some cases, where we can and where we have the capacity, we go to the smaller and subcontracted units. For example, we're doing that in increasing number in Cambodia, where we have an agreement with the government and the parties there that we can move in that direction.
I would say this as well: It is important that there's transparency about the law being applied in garment factories. One way to do this is through Better Work monitoring the work of each factory. But we need to think beyond the strategy of trying to change the world one factory at a time.
I come back to this notion that Better Work is best where we can support broader reform in the industry. Our vision should be to strengthen the governance of those that should be governing labour markets — that's government, strong national institutions and independent worker and employer organizations.
I think we would hesitate to get drawn into the idea that we should be in every factory in the world. What we attempt to do is to try and change the culture of compliance in an industry by engaging with a critical mass of international brands and a critical mass of the employees in the industry to show them it is in their interest to have better working conditions. That then stimulates broader improvement in other areas in terms of governance. That's our strategy for each of the countries where we work.
Senator Ngo: Thank you, sir, for your presentation. I have some follow up questions. Theoretically speaking, whatever you say is right, but the two factories are not right. You say it is up to the workers to form the unions. It is up to the workers' voices to raise the questions and so on, but, if you come to a country where the country bans the unions and the factories belong to the government officials, how do you do that? Theoretically, you say it is good, and, from last week, Human Rights Watch says that they're banned from going into Vietnam.
What are you going to do? You say that you would like to discuss, to talk with the government, to improve the standard and so on. You mentioned Vietnam. That's the question I'm asking. Vietnam is banning unions. They're not allowed to form unions.
Mr. Rees: Yes.
Senator Ngo: And the manufacturing company belongs to the government officials. It is not a private company. So the workers don't have the voice, and you say they get paid. They don't get paid according to what you say. If you say that their salary is about $1 an hour, they receive 50 cents. The other 50 cents goes to the employers, those being the government officials. What are you going to do about that? Those are my questions.
Mr. Rees: Good questions, both, and, as I remarked earlier, the garment industry is certainly producing in countries where freedom of association or right to collective bargaining don't exist and Vietnam is one of them.
What are we doing in Vietnam? Well, we are obviously obliged to engage within the context of the national law, where there is limited room for opening up the space on collective bargaining. Certainly, freedom of association, at this time, does not exist. What we do is we engage; we take a long-term view and a reform view. I think the ILO has been in very meaningful discussions with the Government of Vietnam about its willingness to move toward the ratification of those conventions on freedom of association and right to collective bargaining. I think we recognize that the industry is changing. That, as Vietnam chooses to open up to the international market, there are certain reforms that it will make.
Better Work attempts to be a place where those national institutions, the workers and employers, can actually experiment with new forms of self-expression. For example, about three years ago, we began the practice of free and fair elections in the garment industry in Vietnam. That was new at the time. It was somewhat cutting edge.
We noticed that, as workers have the confidence to elect their own officials and as we can train them in negotiation skills, as well as managers in negotiation skills, the capacity within the factory improves to identify and resolve issues. We also noticed that these forms of selection became ratified in law reforms in Vietnam, and now, as Vietnam is moving towards further reforms, we think we can position the program as a place where the national institutions, as well as workers on the factory floor, can begin to express themselves further as they move towards more openness in terms of freedom of association and right to collective bargaining. So it is a long-term view. It is investing in what we can do to improve working conditions, and it is supporting what change there is, at the pace, very much, at which Vietnam is willing to go to move toward more open civil and political freedoms. That's our strategy in Vietnam.
We also work in Jordan. When the Better Work program started in Jordan, it was certainly not at all clear that it was lawful for the 90 per cent of workers in that industry who are migrant to join the trade union. Today, every single one of them is represented in a collective agreement with the independent union in the garment sector, in what is a very clear and relatively strong collective agreement with the employers. That process came about because Better Work was able to position itself as a place where workers' and employers' interests could begin to discuss these problems that we were highlighting and to strengthen their ability to bargain and then, ultimately, to create this contract, which, I'm happy to say, is supported in part by Canadian expertise as we give them ongoing support to implement that contract.
It is a difficult question, and I don't have a magic wand or a simple answer. We try to position ourselves to do everything we can to promote ongoing reform and to implement the ILO conventions over the longer period. That's our strategy.
Senator Ngo: Did you try one or two manufacturers? You mentioned that Vietnam has some companies that already have some collective bargaining and are unionized, too, and have the freedom of assembly and so on. I don't think so. So far, there's nothing there. What are you going to do in order to change that? Do you talk directly with the government or the union or the employers?
Mr. Rees: Sorry?
Senator Ngo: Did you discuss directly with the government or the employers of the company in order to form the unions and then to have the collective bargaining for the workers?
Mr. Rees: Just to be clear, it is not lawful currently in Vietnam to form an independent union at a workplace level. Of course, we don't engage in unlawful activities in the countries where we work. It is lawful and somewhat new for workers to elect their own representatives in participation committees and to begin the process of identifying what their issues are and to begin a process of bringing these to management in order to resolve them and to improve working conditions.
There is one trade union in Vietnam. It is part of the party apparatus; it is the VGCL. Within that context, it is very limited what you can do in order to promote directly freedom of association and the right to collective bargaining in the long term, while acting within the law of the land. The ILO is in Vietnam at the request of the government and the other constituents, and we will observe the law of the land.
My point is that, in the changing environment in Vietnam, there has been some room within the law to promote greater participation of workers and greater engagement of workers in the problems that they face within the workplace and to strengthen it with negotiation skills. As the VGCL reforms — it is going through a process of reform — and as the legal environment in Vietnam reforms as well and opens up more space for freedom of association and right to collective bargaining — and it is our expectation that it will — then we continue to support what opportunities there are for workers and employers to assert their rights in terms of being able to bargain and form the associations that they can.
That's what we do. I don't mean to imply, in any way, that these conditions exist. They don't, by definition. What I'm saying is that there are subtleties within this where you can increase the participation, and as reform increases in Vietnam — and again it is our expectation that it will — there are things that the Better Work program can do to support that space opening up.
Senator Andreychuk: I just have a comment on the work of the ILO. Having been involved for over 30 years, I know the original actions of ILO were always toward the agreements and the definitions, et cetera. Over the years, I have seen it evolve into understanding what the workplace is, involving the government and the companies, and so I would encourage the ILO to continue finding new ways and means as you have been in your mandate. It is one that works very well with human rights, rather than with the strict interpretations that used to be taken. I hope that direction continues.
The Chair: I have one last question, if I may. The declaration of the G7 summit that recently took place in Germany stated that the G7 countries:
. . . will strive for better application of internationally recognized labour, social and environmental standards, principles and commitments (in particular UN, OECD, ILO and applicable environmental agreements) in global supply chains.
What impact do you think this will have on garment workers?
Mr. Rees: Let me say this, and also with acknowledgement to the previous comment: There is a significant gap between law and practice in many countries of the world. It's one thing for member states to ratify conventions, and it's important that they do, but there is a significant gap between labour law and labour practice in many countries around the world and it's not just the garment industry.
What impact I hope for with G7 acting together, joined, I hope, by many other governments, is to make a significant push for the conditions of decent work in their own relationships with trading partners and with development partners around the world. I think decent workers and the conditions of decent workers is a fundamental pillar of national development strategies. It's clearly going to be a key sustainable development goal and it's been rather overlooked in the past in terms of the importance of labour regulation to business and the importance of good, solid regulation in order to enable competition to take place.
There is a significant gap there and our hope is that through development assistance, through more resources mobilized, through the influence of the G7 and other governments, there is greater focus and attention on this problem of closing the gap between law and practice. That's about strengthening national institutions, encouraging firms at the top of the supply chain to be more responsible in their own practices and the way they order product and price product, and it's ultimately about G7 and other countries asserting their influence that this is of value in the world they want to see achieved and international trade should be built on the floor of decency and decent work.
The Chair: Mr. Rees, thank you for making yourself available. We still have many questions but we have run out of time. We appreciate you making time for us and we look forward to working with you in the future.
(The committee continued in camera.)