The Leadership Group for Responsible Recruitment formally launched in London on May 4th with an ambitious announcement of its intention to eradicate the charging of recruitment fees to workers within a decade. Labor recruitment fees charged to vulnerable workers are a major contributing factor to forced labor in global supply chains and the Leadership Group is squarely focused on promoting the ‘Employer Pays Principle’ and facilitating its implementation across all industries and geographies.
The Leadership Group – convened by the Institute for Human Rights and Business (IHRB) – was founded by companies and institutions that include Coca-Cola, HP Inc., Hewlett Packard Enterprise, IKEA, Unilever, the Interfaith Center for Corporate Responsibility, International Organization for Migration, and Verité.
Verité is delighted to be part of this collaboration which builds upon much of the work we’ve done with leading companies to build a new business model in migrant worker recruitment. We seek to reverse the prevailing model of recruitment present in so many industries and countries in which vulnerable workers pay for jobs. The ‘Employer Pays Principle’ is squarely based on verifying that employers are paying all the costs associated with recruitment and hiring.
Verité’s Shawn MacDonald participated in the official launch activities of the Leadership Group, which included serving on a panel with other founding members of the group as well as Kevin Hyland, the United Kingdom’s Independent Anti-Slavery Commissioner. He also spoke with other Leadership Group members at the Innovation Forum’s conference, “How Business Can Tackle Modern Slavery and Forced Labour” about the initiative and approaches to tackling recruitment and other labor abuses in global agricultural supply chains.
For more information on Verite’s work on responsible recruitment, see here.