Employees in the textile industry who may be exposed to adverse working conditions should have access to effective grievance mechanisms and effective access to remedy and redress. This is not only an elementary component of corporate due diligence, but can also make an important contribution to equal opportunities and the fight against discriminatory structures. This is what the Textile Partnership and its members are committed to. 

In order to achieve this goal, the Partnership aims to address all relevant implementation stages in the design of its Partnership Initiatives: Promoting functioning in-house grievance structures, strengthening cross-company external grievance mechanisms and supporting local contact points. 

Building on the project experiences and successes of recent years, the joint development of the KPIs for the three implementation stages in the newly established Partnership Initiatives has almost been finalized in 2023. Further information on the focus topic of Grievance Mechanisms and Access to Remedy can be found on the Textile Partnership website. 

If complaints cannot be addressed and resolved at local level, complaints mechanisms from purchasing companies or sector and multi-stakeholder initiatives play an important role. This is because they act as a “safety net”.  

Under the LkSG, many companies have been obliged to set up a complaint procedure since January 2023. This must enable the confidential reporting of human rights and environmental violations that may arise in connection with the economic activities of a company and its direct and indirect suppliers. Alternatively, companies can participate in a cross-company approach. The challenge here is the large number of existing and established grievance mechanisms options.  

In order to avoid making the range of grievance mechanisms even broader and more confusing for workers, the Partnership for Sustainable Textiles has been working closely with the Fair Wear Foundation (FWF) since April 2021, which already implements an established cross-company mechanism. Through this cooperation, participating Partnership companies have the opportunity to implement the FWF mechanism in their supply chain and thus improve access to effective grievance and redress mechanisms for workers. Furthermore, the cooperation with the FWF is intended to harmonize the many different approaches to grievance mechanisms and remedy. 

The first project phase ended in April 2023 and has been extended to other countries (Vietnam, India, Bangladesh, Turkey, Eastern Europe), companies and production facilities since the second phase. The second project phase of the Partnership Initiative, which has now started, is once again taking place in cooperation with the Fair Wear Foundation and focuses more strongly on supporting rights holders from the production countries. An additional innovation of the second phase is the increased focus on strengthening and supporting workers during the complaints process. This will be implemented with Femnet and two local organizations, CIVIDEP and BCWS in 2024. Further information on the second project phase can be found in the following article. 

A total of 26 factories have been included in the Partnership Initiative so far. This gives around 25,000 workers the opportunity to use the Fair Wear complaints mechanism. 

These members participated in the PI Joint Grievance Mechanism

Brands
Brands Fashion, Cotton’n’more, Karl Dieckhoff, Esprit, Seidensticker

Civil society:
FEMNET e.V.

Other cooperation partners:
Fair Wear Foundation (FWF), Civil Initiatives for Development and Peace-India (CIVIDEP, Bangladesh Center for Workers Solidarity (BCWS) 

While previous initiatives in the area of complaint mechanisms and access to remedy have primarily focussed on Tier 1 suppliers, the PI Digital Complaint Management and Capacity Building is dedicated to the lack of complaint structures in the deeper supply chain (Tier 2 & Tier 3). The Partnership Initiative was submitted in the Call for proposals by Bierbaum Proenen, CARE, Deltex, deuter, ORTOVOX and Sympatex.   

The deeper supply chain in particular harbours increased risks for factory workers, as Tier 2 and Tier 3 suppliers can be changed very easily, often without knowledge of the brands. This makes it difficult for brands to implement a comprehensible and sustainable risk analysis and risk minimisation. In addition, many brands have simply not yet sufficiently included their Tier 2 and Tier 3 suppliers in the analysis of their supply chain, which is due to a lack of knowledge of the suppliers, for example. However, it is precisely this knowledge that is now required by law (LkSG).  

Finally, there are often hardly any providers of grievance mechanisms that go beyond Tier 1 suppliers, can be used by anyone and do not require membership of a provider organization in the respective country. China and Vietnam are two countries where grievance structures in the deeper supply chain are still largely absent. 

Both Chinese and Vietnamese workers and the management of textile factories in the downstream supply chain are to be trained in labor law and decent work as part of training programs and made aware of the benefits and trustworthiness of grievance systems. The aim is to establish a functioning internal complaints system in the respective factories. 

In addition, an externally managed digital grievance system is to be set up as a back-up grievance tool. This is intended to encourage workers and give them the opportunity to submit their complaints anonymously and without reprisals. 

These members participated in the PI Digital Complaint Management and Capacity Building

Brands:
Bierbaum Proenen, CARE, Deltex, deuter, ORTOVOX, Sympatex

Civil society:
CARE

Some workers, but especially refugees in the textile industry, are often doubly disadvantaged in their everyday (professional) lives. On the one hand, they are often not or only partially aware of their rights; on the other hand, refugees in particular, as vulnerable groups, face discriminatory structures in everyday life and at the workplace. 

The Partnership Initiative (PI) Access to Remedy for (Refugee) Workers addresses this challenge by improving the working conditions of workers from the host society and refugees in the Turkish textile and clothing industry in the long term. To this end, the PI aims to inform workers about their rights and improve the use of complaints systems and the effectiveness of the Worker Support Center (WSC) complaints mechanism. 

Over the entire duration of the project, the NGO MUDEM will carry out a total of 300 factory visits to 200 different factories. During these visits, around 3,000 interviews will be conducted with employees, at least 50% of whom will be female workers. In these interviews, the workers will be asked about their experiences and their knowledge of their rights and working conditions (including awareness raising regarding the WSC) will be sharpened. 

These members participated in the PI Access to Remedy for (Refugee) Workers

Brands:
Primark, C&A, NKD, Jfferys, IVY OAK, KiK, textilekonzepte, Puma, adidas, Ceres Clothing 

Other cooperation partners:
MUDEM – Refugee Support Association