Campaign: The fight for agricultural workers’ rights in southern Spain

“We have been engaging with growers and suppliers in Spain for a number of years to help improve industry practice. This has primarily been through the ‘Spanish Ethical Forums (part funded by Tesco) which aim to raise awareness of labour issues within the supply base and build capacity to address them... We expect, and support, our key suppliers in the region to conduct due diligence to ensure learning from the forums are implemented and fair working conditions are maintained.”

"We respect human rights and have comprehensive processes in place to ensure that everyone in our supply chain who makes, grows and supplies our products is treated fairly.

We also work closely with other retailers and suppliers to address human rights concerns through initiatives such as Stronger Together and the Food Network for Ethical Trade (FNET).

In addition, we would draw your attention to the following:

    • We operate a confidential, independent Alert Line which allows suppliers and employees to raise concerns at any time, in any language and all calls are fully investigated

    • Our processes require suppliers to detail their entire produce supply chain to Aldi via a data-sharing platform, providing continuous visibility of all our produce farms 

    • Our certification and auditing approach is detailed in our modern slavery statement on our website. We are also part of a Retailer Auditing Alignment group which shares best practice and is in dialogue with Global GAP to try to improve its human rights requirements in audits

    • Please visit our modern slavery statement for full details."

"We do not currently reveal the specific locations of our farms for privacy reasons. However, we are fully transparent about our supplier network and regularly publish our tier 1 factory lists, which are available on our Partnership website.

Our belief is that we can have the biggest impact by empowering suppliers with the skills and tools needed to implement their own effective internal grievance mechanisms, which in turn provides workers with a platform to have their issues addressed at a more local level.

In the UK we support the GLAA, the Modern Slavery Hotline, and the Salvation Army’s hotline, and are Strategic Partners of ISSARA, which runs worker hotlines for migrant workers.

We work regularly with local trade unions and NGOs to ensure effective grievance mechanisms are in place across our supply chain.

We are fully committed to investigating reported issues and have a number of safeguarding mechanisms in place to prevent risk. We expect the very highest standards from all our suppliers and work hard to ensure those standards are consistently applied across our supply chain.

We will only source produce from suppliers that we know and trust. As mentioned, we do not currently reveal the specific locations of our farms for privacy reasons. However, we are fully transparent about our supplier network and regularly publish our tier 1 factory lists, which are available on our Partnership website.

We work closely with organisations like Global GAP and have a number of key initiatives to ensure workers across our supply chain have a platform to raise concerns in a safe and open environment. 

We support effective internal grievance mechanisms and work hard to ensure all workers across our supply chain are equipped with the skills and tools needed to address any issues they might face.

For more information, please see our latest Modern Slavery Statement."

"The welfare of workers within our supply chain is a priority and we expect all suppliers to meet our ethical sourcing code.

Co-op, alongside many other major UK retailers, does purchase fruit, vegetable and salad crops from the Almeria region, and therefore we have a number steps in place to ensure workers are treated fairly and to ensure greater transparency: 

    • We have established, robust ethical trade monitoring and capacity building programmes in place in the region to tackle issues faced by migrant workers directly. We are also working with our suppliers and with other retailers, to ensure high standards are met. The Co-op requires all our suppliers to meet our Code of Conduct, which is based on the ETI Base Code and the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights. Our suppliers are required to demonstrate compliance against these Codes and to provide evidence of continuous improvement in worker welfare.

    • We are committed to greater transparency in our supply chain and earlier this year we published our eight priority human rights focus areas with includes Spain, and as part of our Future of Food ambition we have commitment to share the sites we source from and the human rights risks we face with members and customers by 2020.

    • Since 2012, Co-op has played a pivotal role in developing supplier-led regional forums in Spain to drive improvements in working conditions. Equally, since 2015, a large number of UK retailers have funded and supported the Spain Ethical Trade Supplier Forums, which is a coalition of retailers and importers committed to working with growers in Southern Spain to develop and share best practice. Over the last few years, producers in Southern Spain have received training from local authorities, labour inspectors and the International Office for Migration on how to address risks and ensure that labour standards are applied within their own operations and with their labour providers.

    • In 2018, the Forums launched three working groups across the key sourcing regions of Murcia, Almeria and Huelva. The Working Groups, which are led by suppliers, focus on regional specific issues such as worker accommodation, transport, recruitment of temporary workers, creating a good worker induction programme, worker committees and traceability of smallholder labour practices. These forums provide a safe space for suppliers to share experiences and good practices, openly discuss challenges and work collaboratively to improve working conditions. 

Further information on Co-op’s broader ethical trade programme can be found on our website."

“As part of our business contracts, all of our suppliers are required to commit to our strict Code of Conduct, as well as implementing social and environmental standards, such as those defined by the International Labour Organisation (ILO) and the United Nations Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights. We also monitor the performance of our suppliers against our expectations using the Supplier Ethical Data Exchange platform (Sedex) and Global G.A.P. GRASP social risk assessment. In addition to this, we work closely with suppliers and growers to ensure that we fully understand the challenges they face and help to develop practical solutions. This is facilitated through the Spanish Ethical Trade Forums, an initiative that we fund and support in collaboration with other UK retailers and suppliers. Focus areas over the last year have included helping suppliers to build responsible recruitment practices, improving accommodation standards and supporting effective worker committees.”

“We recognise our responsibility to buy, produce and sell our products in an ethical and sustainable manner. We are members of the Ethical Trading Initiative (ETI) and have an established approach to respecting human rights and tackling labour exploitation in our supply chains. In relation to this particular issue, we are active participants in the ETI working group on Modern Slavery and co-funded their research on human rights due diligence in Spanish agriculture.”

 “We work collaboratively to support our Spanish suppliers and have organised supplier forums in Southern Spain to raise awareness of our ethical trading standards and to provide growers with practical advice on meeting these standards, including the monitoring of labour agencies. We also have a dedicated team based in Almeria that works directly with our suppliers, ensuring they comply with a number of third-party standards such as GlobalGAP and Sedex.”

"Spain is an important sourcing country for us and we source from a number of regions including Almeria. We work closely with our suppliers and growers to ensure the M&S products are being ethically and sustainably sourced as outlined in our Global Sourcing Principles and our Select Grower Field to Fork programme – which you can read more about here.

We have long term partnerships with our growers and suppliers that allow us to be fully transparent in our supply chain and to support change and drive improvement. Additionally, M&S have collaborated to support the establishment of regular Spanish Ethical Trade Forums, which provide growers and suppliers support on ethical issues including exchange and learning from peers, importers and retailers."

"Whole Foods Market has long-standing programs in place to address human rights and labour issues in our supply chain, including instituting programs like our Whole Trade Guarantee that ensure fair and safe working conditions for suppliers across the globe. We remain committed to and continue to invest in, supply chain transparency and ethical sourcing. 

In addition, we wanted to draw your attention to the below:

On January 1, 2020, we introduced our Supplier Code of Conduct, which formalises our strong commitment to ensuring that the products and services we provide are produced in a way that respects human rights and the environment, and that the suppliers we engage with share this commitment. Our Supplier Code of Conduct details the requirements and expectations for suppliers in our supply chain, and their commitment to these standards is required as a condition of doing business with us.

We’ve been offering fairly traded products for decades. In 2007, Whole Foods Market created its Whole Trade Guarantee to highlight suppliers’ commitment to ethical trade, working conditions and the environment. To support better wages and worker welfare, the company partners with third-party certifiers, including Fair Trade International and Rainforest Alliance. Whole Trade Guarantee product purchases help fund community projects — such as schools and health clinics – determined by the workers themselves. "