Since its inception in 1971, ICCR’s members have worked with companies to eradicate human rights abuses in their operations and global supply chains.
The UN Guiding Principles for Business and Human Rights along with the OECD Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises provide a framework for corporations to conduct robust human rights due diligence. The steps in this process begin with 1) adoption of a strong human rights policy articulating a company’s respect for human rights, and are followed by 2) policy implementation, including conducting human rights impact assessments, and 3) carrying out human rights due diligence to identify and remediate impacts.
This systematic approach helps shape our members’ engagements with corporations on human rights.
Featured ICCR Initiatives
Forced Labor in Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region. Since 2017, the Chinese government has placed an estimated 1.8 million predominantly Uyghur and other Muslim minorities in detention camps, prisons, and factories in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region. ICCR has joined the Call to Action endorsed by over 200 organizations which calls for apparel brands to stop sourcing from the Uyghur region in China due to the near certainty of forced labor, and to create a plan for disengagement of all business relationships with connections to this region during a one year period.
Increasing Covid-19 Protections for Meat Workers. In May of 2020, ICCR released a joint statement endorsed by 118 institutions with $2.3 trillion USD in combined assets that highlighted risks to workers in the meat sector due to the COVID-19 pandemic, and contained specific recommendations to help safeguard all stakeholders, workers, and their families and communities. Our recommendations include:
- Enforce physical distancing and reduce line speed;
- Provide wage increases to reflect the increased risks to workers, and full paid sick-leave for all workers who test positive for the virus;
- Support worker’s rights to freedom of association and collective bargaining;
- Rigorous testing before/after shifts and retesting and quarantining of all employees who have had confirmed contact with other infected persons before allowing them back in the plant; and,
- Clarify that the company opposes any and all federal or state policies that would deny meatpacking and poultry workers unemployment benefits or stimulus relief for refusing to go back to work for fear of contracting COVID-19.
Investor Letter to 43 Apparel & Footwear Brands Urging then to Safeguard Workers During the Pandemic. Workers in the apparel and footwear sector have been especially squeezed during the pandemic as global brands cancel and/or reduce previously confirmed orders and, in some cases refuse or delay payment for already completed work. Migrant workers are particularly at risk. Investors have sent letters to the 43 apparel and footwear brands named in KnowTheChain’s December 2018 report on forced labor risk, asking them to take 4 key steps to protect Bangladesh's garment workers.
