26 September  |  09:00-10:00 ICT

Addressing Modern Slavery and Achieving Worker Remedy through Worker Voice: What have we learnt?

Organized by:

• New South Wales Anti-Slavery Commissioner

• Issara Institute

• Labour Rights Foundation

• Australian Human Rights Institute

Background

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Worker voice refers to the ability of workers to unite, express their demands collectively, and negotiate for better working conditions. It is a fundamental aspect of labour relations. Though sometimes narrowly understood as the creation of a hotline or app, meaningful worker voice goes far beyond pointing to issues that need to be addressed. It is about empowering workers, through trusted workers’ organizations, to play a key role in solving and preventing workplace issues. Promoting worker voice can be done through diverse channels, including legislative requirements, voluntary frameworks and many types of initiatives in between. It can include monitoring compliance with requirements on government entities engaging in public procurement (eg NSW Modern Slavery Act/Office of the NSW Anti-Slavery Commissioner, Electronics Watch), private sector driven multi-stakeholder initiatives (Fair Farms in Australia) and worker-driven supply chain initiatives where workers play a central role in compliance (Fair Food, in the US; Cleaning Accountability Framework in Australia, and many initiatives across Asia). 

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The session is led by the Office of the NSW Anti-Slavery Commissioner, and will be opened by the NSW Anti-Slavery Commissioner, Dr James Cockayne, with an introduction the relationship between modern slavery survivor engagement and worker voice, and the importance of considering the ‘Why’, ‘What’ and ‘How’ of worker voice in the context of supply chains.

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This will be followed by a panel discussion with three esteemed experts: 

• Hnin Wut Yee, Director of the Labour Rights Foundation; 

• Mark Taylor, Co-founder of the Issara Institute; and

• Justine Nolan, Director of the Australian Human Rights Institute and a Professor in the Faculty of Law and Justice at UNSW Sydney. 

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Objectives​​

​After the session, participants should be able to:

• Appreciate the importance of worker voice in due diligence and supply chain monitoring;

• Understand different models for achieving/harnessing worker voice; and

• Apply the information from the session to their own contexts, to identify key stakeholders and opportunities for utilizing worker voice as well as anticipating challenges that could arise and ways to overcome them.

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Session Partners