Supply Chain: The Insights You Need from Harvard Business Review

12 CONSUMER PRESSURE IS KEY TO FIXING DIRE LABOR CONDITIONS

by Robert Handfield, Tim Kraft, and Marguerite Moore

Despite decades of efforts and numerous initiatives to improve labor practices in apparel supply chains, worker rights violations continue to be rampant in low-cost countries. Increasing pressure from advocacy groups, financial analysts, and the media to address such incidents has led Western brands, NGOs, and third-party certification bodies to develop a plethora of diverse auditing programs that vary in terms of goals, scope, and commitment.

However, the potpourri of assessments (certifications, third-party audits, brand audits, and self-assessment audits) remain ineffective, and in fact conditions in many factories appear to ...