Example in Action: Technology-based Feedback Mechanisms

Female employee pressing a green button to give feedback on a device at the company exit door.
Photo Credit: Celpax_Unsplash

  • Many feedback mechanisms rely on smartphone technology to administer anonymous surveys that poll workers on working conditions in factories and fields. Note that surveys are worker feedback tools, rather than grievance mechanisms, because they do not provide a means for dispute remediation or settlement. 

  • Issara Institute operates a smartphone application called Golden Dreams in Southeast Asia. This application offers Burmese, Cambodian, and Thai migrant workers information on ethical recruitment, including ratings of specific employers, recruiters, and service providers. Issara, through Golden Dreams, also gives workers a mechanism to anonymously report problems or seek immediate assistance through a free hotline and messaging feature. These initiatives enable companies in Thailand, including suppliers to major retailers like ALDI*, to provide safer working conditions.

  • Responsible Business Alliance’s worker voice platform, RBA Voices, aims to help members and their suppliers improve conditions in their international supply chains. RBA Voices gives workers more ways to deliver feedback and provide companies with greater visibility into facilities. Features include a worker survey tool, audit support, a mobile learning app, and grievance reporting.

  • Other initiatives, such as Contratados.org,* use web-based technology to create online platforms on which workers, including migrants, can rate and comment in their native languages on labor recruiters and contractors. 

  • Many available technologies provide pathways for reporting worker concerns and complaints, but do not provide easily accessible tools for remedying individual or collective violations of worker rights. The ILO’s Factsheet on Grievance Handling provides good practices on legitimate, independent grievance mechanisms that should be integrated into technology platforms to address worker grievances.   

DOL welcomes examples of good practices 
to address child labor and forced labor. 

Email us at GlobalKids@dol.gov.