The Competence Centre for Human Rights Due Diligence will partner with unions and companies to secure workers' rights in sectors like garment, technology and critical minerals.
IndustriALL said with regulations like the German Act on Corporate Due Diligence Obligations in Supply Chains and the EU Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive (CSDDD), millions of workers around the globe have access to new tools to protect their rights. However, without adequate enforcement and accountability support, these laws risk becoming box-ticking measures rather than real safeguards.
The new centre fills a much-needed gap.
Where the garment sector is concerned, pilot programmes are underway in Cambodia, Indonesia and Bangladesh to test and develop strategies for workers to be meaningfully involved in the human rights due diligence process for their value chains.
The vision for these pilots is to move companies from an overreliance on social audits, which often amount to box-ticking exercises, to a dialogue-based process with workers at the core. The centre will support unions to advocate for their role as stakeholders in risk identification, in action plan design, and in dialogue to define and ensure remedies.
“We are at a pivotal moment. New human rights due diligence and trade laws are fundamentally changing how business is done in global supply chains. The legal infrastructure for responsible business is still being built across the world, but practices must start changing now. Workers and their unions must be at the centre of company assessment, mitigation and remediation of human rights risks. The Competence Centre will support workers and their representatives to make sure these new laws deliver concrete results for workers in value chains that underpin our global economy,” said Kelly Fay Rodríguez, head of the new Competence Centre.
The launch event focused on the evolving legal landscape, models for embedding workers’ rights in supply chain due diligence, and workers’ perspectives on responsible business conduct.
“For too long, human rights due diligence has meant paperwork, not progress. Workers in global supply chains need more than laws on paper – they need the tools and support to make those laws work for them. The Competence Centre gives unions the leverage to do exactly that: to move from compliance rituals to real accountability, and to ensure that workers are at the heart of the process, not an afterthought,” said Atle Høie, IndustriALL general secretary.
The centre will operate a virtual helpdesk for trade unions – a strategic hub providing advice, guidance and referrals on human rights due diligence laws. The helpdesk will identify where regulatory frameworks and accountability mechanisms create additional leverage for unions to challenge rights violations and get remedy for workers where it is due. It will also provide a crucial connection for rightsholders to legal and advocacy groups who can support them in bringing cases.
The centre’s steering committee, comprised of UNI, IndustriALL and DGB, will focus on three key objectives:
- Build capacity of trade unions globally to use human rights due diligence obligations to defend workers’ rights.
- Support strategic interventions using HRDD instruments to address specific workers’ rights violations.
- Advocate for effective human rights due diligence laws and their implementation.
This article was first published by IndustriALL.
