Dozens of expertise corporations are persevering with to place the lives and livelihoods of provide chain staff in danger by failing to satisfy even essentially the most primary due diligence expectations round pressured labour and human rights abuses, finds sectoral evaluation.
Carried out by KnowTheChain (KTC) – a undertaking run by the Enterprise & Human Rights Useful resource Centre (BHRRC) that’s making an attempt to drive consciousness and company motion on the problem of pressured labour in worldwide provide chains – the benchmark evaluation revealed that the world’s largest expertise corporations are neglecting their duties to uphold their staff’ human rights.
Utilizing a spread of indicators akin to recruitment, buying and monitoring practices, and staff’ rights to organise, KTC scored every of the 45 world tech corporations out of 100 on their efforts to deal with pressured labour and different human rights abuses of their operations.
Throughout all 45 corporations benchmarked by KTC for 2025, simply three (Hewlett Packard, Samsung and Cisco) scored over 50 out of 100, with the typical rating being simply 20.
Pressured labour and slavery are vital and persevering with issues, and in the case of the tech sector are significantly prevalent within the mining of uncooked supplies and the manufacturing of elements that make up expertise merchandise.
The Worldwide Labour Group (ILO) estimates there are 24.9 million victims of pressured labour globally, whereas the World Slavery Index estimates there to be 40.3 million victims of contemporary slavery.
Following the publication of its third benchmark report in June 2020, KTC discovered that tech corporations had been “negligent of their efforts to deal with pressured labour” and that, following its fourth benchmark in January 2023, corporations have “abjectly failed” to deal with the dangers and impacts of pressured labour all through their provide chains, regardless of hovering income on the time.
The ICT sector continues to neglect its accountability to uphold employee rights throughout provide chains. It should step up its efforts to root out pressured labour as a matter of urgency Áine Clarke, Enterprise & Human Rights Useful resource Centre
In keeping with KTC’s newest benchmark evaluation, whereas there was progress within the institution of insurance policies, governance and baseline human rights due diligence processes, “it’s equally clear that the hole between coverage and apply is rising, with corporations offering little proof of how these insurance policies and processes are applied”.
It added that just about half of corporations got total scores of lower than 15/100 – together with BOE (0), SMIC (3), Luxshare Precision Business (4), Broadcom and Infineon Applied sciences (each 8), FujiFilm (9), Panasonic (10), Nvidia (11), Texas Devices (12), Motorola and Canon (each 13), and Qualcomm (14) – whereas 93% of these assessed by KTC scored zero on their help for staff’ freedom of affiliation.
“The ICT sector continues to neglect its accountability to uphold employee rights throughout provide chains and underperforms in comparison with sectors like attire and footwear on key points like help for freedom of affiliation. It should step up its efforts to root out pressured labour in provide chains as a matter of urgency,” mentioned Áine Clarke, head of KTC and investor technique on the BHRRC.
“The benchmark findings on company human rights due diligence are significantly regarding as most electronics manufacturing is completed in jurisdictions that pose heightened threat of pressured labour, together with China, Taiwan and Malaysia the place human rights dangers are nicely documented.”
The KTC benchmark additional discovered that “buying practices” and “enabling staff’ rights” are the areas the place corporations carried out worst, with the typical being 5/100 for each indicators.
Whereas two-thirds of tech corporations disclosed how they conduct human rights threat assessments on their provide chains, only one in 5 had been in a position to disclose particular examples of partaking with stakeholders to evaluate dangers, which KTC mentioned exhibits little proof of dedication to worker-centric fashions of threat identification.
Its benchmark report famous that the “just-in-time” manufacturing fashions extensively used within the tech sector create a higher threat of abuse to staff.
It additionally highlighted a selected want to guard Taiwan’s massive migrant workforce, which it mentioned is at heightened pressured labour dangers, akin to recruitment charges and misleading contracts, as a result of truth it provides 90% of the world’s superior chips and is subsequently essential to world tech provide chains.
“Whereas many corporations are adept at disclosing human rights insurance policies, there may be little proof these commitments are being applied in apply or having an impact on staff on the bottom. The recognized and widening hole between company commitments and their implementation means staff proceed to be susceptible to exploitation,” mentioned Clarke.
“Paper guarantees will not be sufficient to satisfy rising authorized and stakeholder expectations. Companies should have interaction straight with rightsholders and transfer past a tick-box angle to due diligence.”
KTC is subsequently calling on enterprise leaders and provide chain and recruitment professionals to take rapid motion by guaranteeing full risk-based human rights due diligence throughout their complete provide chains, in addition to using sturdy and moral governance, buying and recruitment practices.
It is usually calling on corporations to have interaction with unions and different employee consultant teams to uphold labour rights and forestall exploitations, and to make use of the European Union’s human rights due diligence legal guidelines as a flooring for his or her practices.
In July 2022, Laptop Weekly reported on how, regardless of the excessive reputational value that tech corporations face in being seen to learn from pressured labour practices, decision-makers inside these enterprises proceed to rely largely on voluntary reporting measures and static audit processes to take care of pressured labour and slavery – one thing that’s exacerbated by a tradition of company and governmental inaction.
