2018 United Nations Forum on Business and Human Rights

Brief description of the presentation:
Konica Minolta Australia will present its experiences in implementing an extensive range of community engagement programs and championing a broad range of social justice issues, including advocating for an Australian Modern Slavery Act which would compel Australian companies above a specified revenue threshold to report annually to government on their initiatives to ensure their supply chains are free from modern slavery and other forms of human rights abuse. Among aspects covered, the presentation will share insights from building capability to manage human rights risks in the supply chain ahead of being compelled to by legislation. The presentation will feature experiences and the unintended positive outcomes around growth in staff engagement and enhanced commercial outcomes.

Presentation objectives:
Sharing experiences and the unintended positive outcomes around growth in staff engagement and enhanced commercial outcomes.

Interpretation is provided into Spanish.

Session organized by the Responsible Business Alliance and The Consumer Goods Forum.

Brief description of the session:
According to International Labour Organization (ILO), approximately 24.9 million people worldwide are in conditions of forced labor. Supply chains include hundreds of thousands of workers who seek to make a better life for themselves and their families.
Many are subject to conditions that may contribute to forced labor, including high recruitment fees, personal debt, complicated recruitment practices, a lack of transparency about their eventual working conditions, and inadequate legal protections in the countries in which they work.
Guiding principles on forced labor are well-established, however, solutions tend to be fragmented across industries and geographies and only address certain aspects or specific points in a worker’s journey.  Due diligence on forced labor should be harmonized across multiple industries that share recruitment supply chain to drive labor market transformation through collective action.
This session will provide testimonials from companies across multiple sectors on how they address forced labor in their operations and supply chains.  It will review core process to operationalize supply chain due diligence on forced labor while exploring collective action needed with stakeholders to address the root causes of this issue.

Format of the discussion:
The session will be organized via a series of speaker remarks, expert interventions and multimedia content. Session moderators will bring to life the opportunities created by harmonizing obligations, policies, initiatives, and expectations to tackle this difficult issue.
To ground the session, we will use real world examples from companies across industries on the opportunities and challenges in devising solutions.  Speakers from civil society will bring perspectives on remediation, remedy and transparency.  Finally the broader topic will be explored by asking participants to consider how business can work collectively as well as with other stakeholders, to address root causes of forced labor.

Programme:
15:00 – 15:10  Introductory remarks and framing of issue
15:10 - 15:50   Part 1 – Business Responses
15:50 – 16:05  Part 2 – Stakeholder Perspectives
16:05-16:20     Part 3 – Question/Answer and way forward