Strengthening Social Compliance Project
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The project aims to prevent labor exploitation by improving the implementation of worker-driven social compliance systems that promote labor rights and acceptable conditions of work, including the elimination of forced labor in supply chains. The project will be piloted in the Indonesian palm oil sector to create a model for robust social compliance systems.
The Problem
The International Labor Organization estimates that 27.6 million people are in forced labor worldwide. Of this, 17.3 million are exploited in the private economy. In the Indonesian palm oil sector, where the project will be piloted, poor working conditions, forced labor and debt bondage persists. The U.S. imports nearly $840 million in palm oil annually from Indonesia. To comply with international labor standards and avoid trade enforcement actions preventing the entry of products made with forced labor into importing markets, companies must increase efforts to ensure supply chain transparency and social compliance. This entails developing or refining rigorous due diligence practices that promote transparency and accountability within their supply chains. Effective remediation and grievance pathways for workers need to be a part of the due diligence systems used by companies.
When violations occur, companies must ensure a rapid and appropriate response to labor violations, including implementing strong monitoring and enforcement mechanisms to ensure compliance with labor rights standards.
Our Strategy
The project will develop and pilot resources to create worker-driven social compliance systems that can be replicated in other countries and sectors.
Recognizing that empowered workers are central to ensuring the protection of labor rights, it will put workers and their organizations in the driver’s seat, developing solutions to ensure the protection of labor rights. Through partnership with companies and local unions, the project will advance workers’ rights to freedom of association and collective bargaining. These enabling rights will lead to the fulfillment of decent wages and work hours and safe, healthy, and discrimination- and harassment-free workplaces. By building the capacity of unions and, in turn, their members, systems will be put in place for workers to play a key role in monitoring working conditions and to access grievance redressal mechanisms to drive improvements.
- Grantee:
- International Labor Organization (ILO)
- Implementing Partners:
- ILO, Indonesian Palm Oil Employers Association (GAPKI), Indonesian Palm Oil Trade Union Network (JAPBUSI), Ministry of Manpower (MoM), Indonesia
- Contact Information:
- GlobalKids@dol.gov / Office of Child Labor, Forced Labor, and Human Trafficking (OCFT)
- Tags:
- Forced labor
- Acceptable Conditions of Work
- Freedom of Association
- Palm Oil
- Social Compliance
- Supply Chains
