Photo: Inditex

The global presence of Inditex gives us a real opportunity to bring positive and lasting change to the garment supply chain in a way that fully aligns with our commitment to the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights. We work with more than 1,700 suppliers and more than 6,000 factories globally, each supplying to one or more of our eight brands, which include Zara, Massimo Dutti, and Bershka. This presence places us close to the heart of communities in numerous different countries.

It is this reach that motivates us to bring sustainable improvements to working conditions and the lives of the more than one million workers employed at these factories. It also provides an important opportunity to recognize our role in supporting the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals by ensuring decent work for all alongside economic development and responsible production.

We recognize that we cannot achieve sustainable progress in the supply chain alone, and that we need to work in partnership – partnerships with other organizations and, crucially, with workers themselves. These partnerships are vital to creating new models and new approaches to improve standards. It is this philosophy that laid the foundation for our global framework agreement with IndustriALL Global Union, signed 10 years ago. This was to become the first agreement of its kind to encompass a retailer’s entire garment supply chain. It protects the interests of all workers throughout the supply chain, whether the factory they are working for is supplying directly to Inditex or further down the chain. It marked a radical step in the industry by creating a space where there can be a free exchange of ideas on workers’ rights and collective bargaining as a way to improve conditions and wages.

“I feel proud of getting nominated to be a worker representative and to be able to express the needs of my colleagues to the management team. We have learned how to hold a dialogue with the management, knowing what our rights are as workers, and in which areas we need to raise awareness. This has helped me feel proud and accomplished as a woman.” – Factory worker representative, Turkey

This collaboration is central to the management of Inditex’s supply chain because we firmly believe that the people best able to protect workers’ rights are the workers themselves. This is why it is essential that workers first know their rights and then establish meaningful social dialogue through the democratic election of representatives for collective bargaining. The work of trade unions is an essential part of establishing these processes, making our cooperation with IndustriALL key. We have further strengthened our agreement over the past decade to accelerate its implementation by facilitating union activity and the oversight of working conditions in our supply chain. 

The collaboration has developed only as a result of completely open communication between Inditex and IndustriALL, allowing the latter full access to our supply chain. Only with this level of transparency are we able to realize the improvements. We have worked with IndustriALL to deliver training to factories on workers’ rights along with worker - management dialogues and on how to run fair election processes. The latest update was signed last year when we agreed to place union experts directly in our supplier clusters – each of our main supplier regions. These union experts are able to directly manage the implementation of mature industrial relations to foster union activity throughout the factories and units supplying directly or indirectly to Inditex. 

We are running joint initiatives with IndustriALL in many of our supplier regions, irrespective of where they are in the world. In some cases, this has also involved other brands working collectively to drive increases in workers’ wages. Our collaboration with IndustriALL has also been integral in addressing any disruptions in social dialogue in countries such as Cambodia and Bangladesh. It has allowed for a strong and united voice to make clear that we must have freedom of association for our supply chain to function effectively.

There are a number of factors that will shape how we manage our supply chain in the years to come. Customers are engaging more and more with the provenance of what they wear and have the right to know the conditions in which their clothes were made. Furthermore, the Sustainable Development Goals are pointing toward more proactive and inclusive approaches, with a distinct focus on human rights at every level of the supply chain – be it a direct supplier, dye house, or laundry. We see our partnership with IndustriALL as the foundation on which to continue working toward lasting improvement in the supply chain. After all, sustainable change can only be achieved if we establish the conditions that engage and empower the workers themselves.