The call comes after a study into Unilever’s business operations found significant gaps between the company’s high level commitments and the reality on the ground for workers.
The two year study, carried out by Oxfam with Unilever’s full cooperation, used the company’s Vietnam operations as a case study to assess a range of issues affecting workers, including working hours, wage levels, stability of employment and relations between management and workers.
Oxfam’s study found labour issues which it says are too often endemic in global supply chains. In the supply chain, more than half of the suppliers interviewed were not clear about Unilever’s expectations on labour standards and examples were found of low wages, excessive working hours and precarious work.
In Unilever’s own operations, it found the assumption at headquarters that production workers are paid a living wage was not borne out. Wages were found to exceed the legal minimum, yet workers reported that they could not meet their household needs.
Barbara Stocking, Oxfam chief executive, says: “Working conditions remain poor for many workers in the value chains of multinational companies around the world, despite the often good intentions of senior management.
“Low wages, long hours, weak systems of industrial relations and job insecurity combine to leave many of the world’s poorest people in a precarious situation and undermines their efforts to work their way out of poverty.”
Source: Oxfam
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