By Mark Zirnsak
Forced labour, and more broadly modern slavery, remains a significant global problem in the production of some of the goods that are imported into Australia. Goods produced with forced labour gain a competitive price advantage over those produced where workers earn decent wages and have decent working conditions.
While the Australian Modern Slavery Act 2018 has had some positive impacts in making reporting entities and their suppliers more conscious of modern slavery risks in supply chains, it does not require corporations to take meaningful action to address modern slavery risks consistently.
The Synod conducted and commissioned research into cases of modern slavery being present in the production of goods imported into Australia.
We commissioned Greenpeace Southeast Asia to investigate the presence of forced labour on tuna fishing vessels in Indonesia.
In addition, we examined three supply chains into Australia for products identified as being at high risk of people being in forced labour in the production of the goods:
- Clothing from Mauritius, involving Rodd & Gunn, Diesel, G-STAR RAW and ASOS;
- Palm oil from Malaysia; and,
- Coffee from Brazil, involving Cooxupé.
The Greenpeace Southeast Asia report, ‘Forced to the Bottom’, interviewed 25 Indonesian fishing boat crew members on board 17 Indonesian tuna fishing vessels. These vessels potentially supply five Indonesian seafood companies, which in turn supply their tuna products to the Australian market. The crew interviewed reported having experienced forced labour. Among the 11 International Labour Organisation’s (ILO) forced labour indicators analysed, the crew most frequently encountered abuse of vulnerability (56 per cent), debt bondage (56 per cent), and deception (40 per cent).
The Synod report, ‘Motivating Ethical Sourcing’, found that there are certainly corporations taking meaningful actions, such as working with non-government organisations, providing grievance channels for workers, working with suppliers to conduct ethical recruitment, and publicly revealing suppliers they will not deal with.
However, some corporations appear to be taking minimal action based on what they have publicly disclosed. That is very clear from the disparity in efforts by corporations to address forced labour risks in palm oil sourced from Malaysia.
In the case of palm oil from Malaysia, the investigation commissioned by the Synod, along with multiple sources working in-country that the Synod spoke to, indicated significant progress in addressing the prevalence of forced labour on plantations. However, more could reasonably be achieved if corporations up the supply chain invested more, including more extensive training for management and superiors on plantations, more extensive monitoring and further improvements in the recruitment process for plantation workers.
The case of clothing from Mauritius highlighted that none of the buyer corporations contacted were willing to disclose the financial contribution, if any, they made to suppliers’ remediation actions to address forced labour in factories from which they had sourced products.
The Australian Government needs to act to ensure the people who make the products we buy in Australia have decent jobs. These actions include:
- Transparency over the suppliers that corporations are sourcing products from;
- Implement a system to ban the importation of goods where workers have been subjected to modern slavery in their production;
- Set up an investigations body in the Australian Border Force dedicated to investigating likely cases of the importation of goods produced with the involvement of modern slavery;
- Strengthen regulation to require corporations to undertake reasonable steps to ensure workers in their supply chains are not trapped in modern slavery for high-risk products.
The Synod JIM Cluster is running a letter-writing action and a postcard campaign to urge the Australian Government to implement these measures.
Mark Zirnsak is the Synod’s Senior Social Justice Advocate
Image courtesy of Jurnasyanto Sukarno/Greenpeace
