You are: Processor

Status: Implementing HRDD

You play an essential role in the seafood supply chain by sitting between raw production and buyers. Since you often employ workers directly in your production facilities, you can set an example for how to protect and promote human rights as an employer and set standards for producers in your supply chain. By implementing practices to uphold worker rights and directly engage with workers within your facilities, you can have an outsized impact on human rights and labor conditions.

As you develop your human rights due diligence (HRDD) program to improve working conditions and meet the expectations of consumers, the Engage and Take Action steps of the Roadmap can offer ideas and best practices. These sections of the Roadmap provide information on maximizing your impact by working collaboratively and how to take action to prevent and remedy human rights issues in your supply chain. These steps also include direct advice and guidance to enhance your program:

• Learn about the services provided by various local organizations, and determine which organizations are most aligned with your company’s goals. Trusted community groups may support seafood workers and can facilitate dialogue and can often connect you to their local network in ways that are respectful and effective.
• Engage with workers as the most reliable way to learn the reality of the worker experience, identify the most critical issues, and devise ways to resolve them. Be sensitive about the risk that direct communication holds for workers; rely on trusted third-party experts to act as guides, always share what became of the information you gathered, and involve workers in the resulting actions.
• Develop company policies and assessment processes for responsible recruitment. Commit to the employer pays principle and develop a labor recruiter assessment to ensure that any workers you recruit are not being exploited during the process.
• Give workers access to trusted, effective grievance mechanisms. Adopt anti-retaliation policies, with associated training for supervisors, to protect worker confidentiality and prevent retaliation, recrimination, and dismissal for those who report issues. 

The Tips and Examples sections of the Roadmap provide examples and case studies that show how these steps can be implemented.

Thai Union has developed several grievance channels, including a human resources clinic, a phone line that allows workers to text or speak with HR directly, elected worker welfare committees that hold meetings to discuss worker welfare issues, suggestion boxes, and a hotline. Each Thai Union facility tends to have at least two of these grievance channels available to workers. Thai Union cited proactive channels of communication (such as the ability of HR representatives to speak with workers on the factory floor) as one of the more effective ways for capturing grievances, as issues can be caught before they escalate. Thai Union directs its grievance channels internally to human resources, to increase employer-employee dialogue and trust. 
Thai Union reports engaging with the Migrant Worker Rights Network to protect the rights of migrant workers, since they are the most vulnerable to modern slavery in the fishing industry. This collaboration has included promoting and supporting the election of migrant workers to worker committees to ensure that their voices are represented and interviewing workers to investigate issues such as the payment of recruitment fees. Thai Union also stated that it engages with the International Transport Workers Federation and Labour Promotion Network to support the protection of worker rights.