Memorandum submitted by Unite the Union
Unite the Union welcomes the Inquiry by the
Joint Committee on Human Rights into Business and Human rights.
Our experience is that the ways in which businesses work impacts
on human rights both positively and negatively. If there is the
good, then undoubtedly there is the bad. We have longstanding
experience in this field. For example, the Transport and General
Workers Union was a founder member of the Ethical Trading Initiative
and our Deputy General Secretary, Jack Dromey, addressed its 10th
Anniversary Conference in November of last year. Through the ETI
and working with others, we have taken numerous initiatives both
domestically and in the international arena to persuade businesses
to use their power positively and not to abuse their power, driving
down costs along their supply chain and not abiding by the stated
aims of the ETI Base Code. Our experience ranges from Britain
to Bangladesh.
As part of this Inquiry, the Union would like
to draw the Committee's attention to the biggest supermarket in
Britain, Tesco PLC. Tesco is a successful and highly profitable
retailer and we make no criticism of their employment practices
in their stores here in Britain. Having said that, despite the
fact that Tesco is a member of the ETI and subscribes to the ETI
Base Code, their procurement practices frequently impact negatively
on the human rights of workers in their supply chain here in Britain
and internationally. There is a particular problem in the Meat
Industry in Britain and Ireland.
Unite the Union is the largest union in the
Food Industry and we have a wealth of experience of the business
practices of Tesco. As part of out campaign "Every Worker
Counts", Unite the Union has exposed the treatment of workers
employed by companies in the British and Irish Meat Industry supplying
Tesco stores. Tesco has abused its 30% UK grocery market share
to drive down costs, creating a systemic pattern of structural
discrimination by way of a two-tier workforce. More and more agency
workers, overwhelmingly migrant, have been employed on poorer
pay and conditions. The newly arrived are, therefore, exploited
and indigenous workers undercut. Some of the evidence of employment
patterns in the Tesco supply chain is truly shocking. That includes
a significient casualisation of work, with many workers not knowing
from one day to the next if they have work and with some being
punished for not using agency housing or transport by the withdrawal
of regular work.
Over two years ago, Tesco and Unite worked together
under the auspices of the ETI, commissioning an independent study
by Ergon, which confirmed that there was a systemic pattern of
structural discrimination. Yet Tesco failed to act and the Equalities
and Human Rights Commission has now launched an Inquiry. The evidence
is clear and that is that that pattern of structural discrimination
causes division in the workplace and damages social cohesion.
Unite the Union has asked Tesco to use its influence
with its suppliers to establish minimum standards guaranteeing
the same treatment of those who do the same job, agency worker
and the directly employed. Another leading supermarket is now
moving down that path, establishing Ethical Model Factories. Tesco
has declined so to do despite the fact that the necessary readjustment
of their supply chain would be cost neutral. That readjustment
would, however, make a dramatic difference to the everyday lives
and human rights of the people who work in the Tesco meat supply
chain.
Working with other unions and NGOs, we have
discovered that the problems faced by UK workers in the supply
chain are not isolated to this country but witnessed elsewhere
around the world:
— In Thailand, there are concerns regarding
the rights and welfare of workers in the country's meat suppliers
that supply Tesco. The International Union of Foodworkers has
discovered disturbing evidence regarding working conditions and
compliance with Health and Safety Regulations.
— The Clean Clothes Campaign in its recent
report Cashing In highlighted the fact that workers in
Sri Lanka sewing clothes for Tesco regularly work more than 64
hours per week for less than £40 a month. The women workers
say that, if you try to form a union, you will lose your job.
In one Sri Lankan supplier, more than half the workers were employed
on a casual basis, increasing job insecurity.
— War on Want and trade unions in Kenya
and Colombia report of abuses of workers in the Flower Industry
that supply Tesco with cut flowers. The complaints are all too
familiar:
— intimidation of workers that want
to join a trade union; and
— poor health and safety practices.
It should be stressed that we have sometimes
been able to work with Tesco to take progressive initiatives,
ranging from the successful campaign to take the Gangmasters Licensing
Bill through Parliament, establishing the Gangmasters Licensing
Authority, to tackling abuse in the company employing thousands
of migrant strawberry pickers here in Britain, S&A Foods.
Having said that, knowing what the evidence is, Tesco has continued
with practices that impact negatively on vulnerable workers in
the Meat Industry here in Britain and overseas. The Tesco rhetoric
of "Every little helps" is far removed from the reality
experienced by workers in the Tesco supply chain and we hope that
the Joint Committee on Human Rights will be able to call Tesco
to account so that they use their enormous market power to promote
human rights and ethical standards. As part of your Inquiry, Unite
the Union would be pleased to give oral evidence.
May 2009
|
