Ninety-Nine Years after Triangle: CSR in Factories

Yesterday marked the 99th anniversary of the Triangle Shirtwaist fire, which claimed the lives of 146 workers, mostly immigrant women and many of whom jumped to their deaths after being locked inside a burning factory.  While not often discussed within the same sentence as the word CSR, the fire was in many ways iconic of the type of problems CSR practitioners seek to address today.  A vigil in memory of those who lost their lives served as a poignant reminder that corporations must take measures to prevent such circumstances, if no other reason than that tragedies like Triangle are not easily forgotten.

Maybe not easily forgotten, but also not easily prevented.  Human rights tragedies continue to abound around the world, which is why Intertek Sustainability Solutions' annual Ethical Sourcing Forum conference is valuable.  Started fourteen years ago as a forum for networking, it has evolved into an interactive environment for CSR practitioners to touch on some of the hairiest issues their companies face.

I was fortunate to receive a media pass to attend this year's Ethical Sourcing Forum, which took place last Thursday and Friday at a conference facility by New York's South Street Seaport.  This year at the conference, "mini-labs" offered attendees the opportunity to explore a wide range of topics, some environmental and some social in orientation.  But far more effective than the individual workshops and the sessions on "going green" were a series of panels and presentations that focused on labor issues.   These provided a forum for the type of back-and-forth that is particularly meaningful, the best example being the opening panel which included speakers from Wal-Mart, Eileen Fisher, The Economist, the U.S. Office of Trade and Labor Affairs, and a small NGO called the Maquila Solidarity Network.

While panels themselves offered interesting insights, the real action came during the Q&As, when CSR practitioners, workers from NGOs, and activists from religious orders stood up to ask questions about topics that were otherwise not touched upon within the formal structure of the conference.  A few of my favorite examples:

1) The relatively-new CEO of a major Canadian school uniform manufacturer commented that the orientation of the opening panel had been on international factory conditions, but emphasized that he had witnessed real challenges within North American facilities which he would like guidance on addressing.

2) A representative from one company stood up during a presentation about the U.S. Department of Labor's efforts to eliminate child labor abroad and commented that she hadn't heard discussion of best practices for child labor remediation.

3) A couple of people asked about data on how consumers respond to discussions of human rights issues.  Nobody had a good answer.

I bring these questions up not as examples of why an interactive environment such as the Ethical Sourcing Forum is so valuable.  Nearly a hundred years after the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire, topics like audit procedures and supply chain integrity have become standard fare worthy of continued exploration, but while they result in many nodding heads, they rarely yield new insights.  The real value of the Intertek conference is that it provides an important forum for CSR practitioners to discover colleagues addressing issues which often fly under the radar but which desperately deserve attention.

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