Bonn, Amsterdam 11.6.09
Dear Mr. Schütze,
On 13th March, 2009 you sent a statement to Business & Human Rights Resource Centre in response to the “Cashing In” report, in which CCC provided evidence of violations of basic rights of workers producing clothes for Lidl. Unfortunately in your response you do not announce any concrete steps to address these violations.
Lidl, instead, announces its intention to improve working conditions in its supply chains by joining the BSCI. However, for such an intention to become a reality, a set of basic requirements should be met. According to the positions not only of the CCC but also of the ITUC (International Trade Union Confederation), a policy of global social responsibility of transnational companies – complementary to binding regulation – should meet basic requirements in the fields of
-Scope of application
-Set of social standards
-Monitoring / Verification
-Transparency
-Financial Responsibility.
In our view, Lidl’s decision to join the Business Social Compliance Initiative (BSCI) in 2008 is far from being satisfying since the BSCI fails in many of these aspects:
-Scope of application: The BSCI code of conduct does not explicitly include all (sub- and sub-sub- etc.) suppliers in the complete supply chain and does not make this an enforceable and enforced part of any supply agreements.
-Set of social standards: The BSCI covers relevant ILO (International Labour Organisation) labour standards but does not mention unambiguously living wages.
-Monitoring /Verification: The BSCI is a business-controlled monitoring initiative. Independent stakeholders are not involved at decision-making levels in the development, implementation and governance of the system.
-Transparency: The BSCI does not disclose its suppliers nor does it publicly report about the continuous measures of improvement in supply factories in the entire supply chain.
-Financial Responsibility: Member companies of the BSCI do not carry the main financial responsibility for the necessary improvements of labour conditions.
In sum, Lidl’s membership in the BSCI is of a symbolic nature rather than a step towards credible and sustainable progress of labour standards. To improve working conditions Lidl should take the recommendations made in the report seriously and take concrete steps to address the violations, working directly with local trade unions and labour rights groups.
The CCC welcomes the intention of Lidl to increase its textile fair trade products. This, however, only shows, that all the rest of textile products are apparently not fairly produced. Fair trade products should come together with a coherent policy of global social sourcing.
Sincerely,
Dr. Gisela Burckhardt
Ineke Zeldenrust,