Grievance Mechanism for Workers

By establishing and reinforcing social dialogue structures, a locally embedded and globally supported grievance mechanism can help prevent harm and settle labour disputes.

Robust grievance mechanisms are vital to facilitate the implementation of fundamental human rights of workers in the supply chain and can play a key role in building a more resilient industry based on social dialogue.

ACT’s work on grievance mechanisms are based on the principles of effective due diligence in line with the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights and guided by industrial relations standards and best practice. 

Based on successful experiences in developing locally embedded grievance mechanisms, we know that effective grievance mechanisms in the sense of the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights are:

  1. Legitimate when they are – as much as possible – developed by the industrial relations stakeholders themselves: An integrated mechanism developed by representatives of employers and workers themselves can enable higher levels of trust and deliver in areas where we have seen significant shortcomings of business-only approaches in the past. Many supply chain grievance mechanisms rely at most on consultation at the local level. In contrast, a locally embedded, industry level grievance mechanism establishes legitimacy and trust. It also enables access to remedy in close contact with impacted stakeholders.
  2. Based on holistic collaboration to maximise effects: While industry level coordination is in theory also possible only between brands and/or multi-stakeholder initiatives providing grievance mechanisms, the ownership (not only involvement) of local employer and trade union representatives ensures collaboration between all relevant stakeholders. Coordinated brand support enables the establishment of joint learning networks where brands can collaborate to maximise effect.
  3. An indispensable part of due diligence: Unlike much of traditional auditing, a locally integrated grievance mechanism if well designed can provide reliable information for companies to identify harms in their production sites and supply chains, and provide a reliable avenue for mitigating any harms identified through complaints. By strengthening relationships and establishing social dialogue structures, a locally embedded and globally supported grievance mechanism as part of a comprehensive and broader industrial relations process can help not only to settle cases but also to prevent them.
Read More in the Global Deal Case Study