What’s in it for Workers?

For workers, the ACT approach offers a pathway to achieving sustainable improvements in wages and conditions through collective bargaining supported through binding commitments by brands on purchasing practices. 

Workers’ voices are integral, with unions serving as central actors in the development and implementation of the national ACT programmes. The engagement by IndustriALL, alongside other supply chain actors, is a central pillar of this approach and ensures that key aspects of the programme are tailor-made to address the priorities of the workers within the industry. Incentivising and facilitating CBAs through commercial brand commitments provides a fundamental shift in the workplace relations in production countries. Workers and their unions benefit from the higher wages and improved conditions for members guaranteed by the CBAs, as well as from the improved industrial relations infrastructure at factory and sector level.

In Cambodia, the national trade union engagement through ACT has lead to a template CBA which includes, wage improvements, benefits as well as a dispute resolution mechanism which ensures that grievances can be effectively handled without disruption to production and instead are addressed as part of a framework which builds trust between brands, manufacturers, and unions.