Wages

Working Hours

Child Labor

Involuntary Labor

Freedom of Association and Collective Bargaining

Abuse and Harassment

Non-Discrimination

Health and Safety

Monitoring etc.

Workers Rights Information Project

As companies pledge to protect the rights of workers in their global operations and avoid inhumane conditions, holding them accountable becomes a complicated issue. Just what kinds of information would it take to show how workers are actually being treated, in any particular workplace located anywhere in the world? In other words, what facts in what form should count as proof that a company is living up to its pledge? And in whose hands do the facts need to be?

We created a Workers Rights Information Project to address these very practical questions. Effective accountability needs not only information but the right kinds of information, in the right forms, collected consistently for many thousands of workplaces in many low-wage countries.

The problem of measurement

Some companies, some workers’ rights advocates, and some third-party organizations like the Fair Labor Association have started sending monitors to overseas factories to see if they are complying with international labor standards and companies’ self-imposed codes of conduct. But each is using different measurements to gauge compliance, with wide variations in sensitivity, comprehensiveness, and reliability. For corporate accountability to be effective, all concerned need a set of standardized measurements, consistently applied and able to produce reliable results. The larger the number of workplaces that are being evaluated, the more urgent the need. More»

A public database to show what has been tried

To stimulate the development of reliable standardized measurements in this field, and to illustrate the possibilities, we have built a public database that collects the full range of measurements now being used by any party (some 2,900 individual measurement units in all) and makes them easy to sort and analyze, on any subject and from any angle. The database is online and open to any user for free.

Strengths, weaknesses, and potential improvements

We have also produced a full analysis of the measurements now in use. Yardsticks for Workers Rights: Learning from Experience includes overall findings and also specific findings for every major topic of workers rights (see left column), showing strengths and weaknesses, best current practices, and possible improvements suggested by experience.