The results of the Factory Support Programme

About the Factory Support Programme

Arisa and its partners’ Factory Support Programme took place in India between September 2020 and March 2024. Programme implementation involved international garment brands (EK Fashion, Erve Europe, Fabienne Chapot, O’Neill, Prénatal, The Sting Companies and WE Fashion) together with buying agents, selected suppliers, and civil society organisations in the Netherlands (Arisa and Mondiaal FNV) and India (Cividep and Paradigm Shift). The programme’s focus was garment and textile supply chains in Tamil Nadu and India’s National Capital Region (NCR), and it included a pilot project in Bengalaru (Bangalore). The overall programme goal was to improve labour conditions and living conditions in the supply chains of participating companies in the programme areas. The programme aimed to support garment and textile suppliers in Tamil Nadu, the NCR and Bangalore in improving worker–management relations through worker-management dialogue, improving awareness of worker rights and responsibilities, establishing functioning worker–management committees in compliance with Indian labour laws and regulations, and improving grievance mechanisms at factory level. As part of the programme, Paradigm Shift in Tamil Nadu and the NCR, and Cividep in Bengalaru, facilitated and implemented dialogue and training sessions and workshops. The brands and their buying agents played a crucial role in nominating and motivating suppliers to participate in the training trajectory. Before the training sessions, they discussed with suppliers the importance of improved worker–management dialogue and effective grievance mechanisms. They explained how improvements in these areas can benefit both workers and the business. Brands’ commitment to support suppliers on this journey has been key, especially when workers raised serious grievances.

Facts and figures 

The Factory Support Programme included the components shown in the infographic below:

Results – what did the programme achieve? 

Among and in addition to the programme outcomes shared previously, the Factory Support Programme achieved the following results.

• • Better supply chain transparency: mapping beyond tier 1 

Throughout the programme, around half the partner brands’ mapping of their supply chains included suppliers beyond tier 1, reaching at least the level of their spinning mills. Initially most brands mapped and documented data in excel files. Managing supply chain data and keeping data up to date remains a challenging exercise that brands are continuously improving. Project partners used different platforms to document their supply chain data, sharing this with Arisa and often also through supply chain data transparency websites such as Tex Tracer and Open Supply Hub or their own website. Publishing the supply chain data is important for several reasons, including so that civil society actors can get in contact with brands in case of rights violations in their supply chains.

• • Improving responsible business conduct 

Additionally, as part of their wider company strategy, brands also critically assessed their responsible business conduct policies and practices relating to child labour, forced labour, discrimination, gender, health and safety, wages and freedom of association, as well as their purchasing practices. Brands worked to improve their policies and practices based on what they learned through the programme. This included insights into labour rights violations and social risks directly or indirectly linked to their policies and practices that emerged during the programme.

• • Improved insights into violations, risks and challenges at factory level

To gather genuine insights into the realities of workers and develop constructive and adequate remediation systems, the programme focused on a dialogue-based training approach. The aim was to establish a dialogue culture and functioning grievance redressal mechanisms at factory level. This has resulted in workers raising both mild and severe grievances. Through the programme’s work of building trust and open communication between workers and management, workers have come to feel comfortable raising their voice to share their concerns and discuss possible violations. This is a sign of a functioning grievance mechanism, which many factory owners and managements are fearful of as it hurts their performance in social audits. However, when they are given the space and support to enter into dialogue with workers concerning their grievances and offer remediation, factory owners and management involved in the programme expressed greater openness to grievances being raised. This approach has led to improved insights into violations, risks and challenges that factory owners, managements and workers face that have not come to light through conventional social auditing processes. Examples of such issues include excessive working hours, non-payment of overtime or minimum wages, failure to register workers under mandated social security schemes, last minute-changes in orders, short lead times, and high management and/or worker turnover. Particularly in the factories in Tamil Nadu, programme implementation has led to the identification of the above violations, which had not previously been identified by audits and were new to some of the brands. For more information on the shortcomings of the audits, see the box at the end of this article.

• • Improved collaboration between brands, suppliers and buying agents

Brands built stronger relations with their buying agents and suppliers through the programme. This process fostered collaborative relationships through regular communication, meaningful dialogue about social risks, and discussions on addressing these risks together and, where possible, throughout their supply chains.

Click here for the full article with more information on the success factors, reflections and outcomes, lessons learned from the programme and more.