I have long been concerned about the squeeze put on suppliers. Having worked many years in manufacturing, I realize the pressure to deliver on time. But the clients never hand over the specs in time, and when they make changes, they don't push out the delivery date - so the supplier scrambles with the usual request for overtime and saturday production from the work force. Just in time and flexible annualized work contracts are the pits from a worker's perspective. Even when the client company has ethical practices and even maybe an ethical trading group - it is usually separated from the purchasing department. And for most manufacturers, they need the work so they are at the mercy of the client companies. Ethics being somewhat at the top of the Maslow pyramid of needs, survival comes first and so greater flexibility of a supplier means work on demand from their employees. I believe a lot of companies would behave differently given a chance - and here is a great article from Ethical Corporation in their strategy and management section, entitled "Labour standards and ethical supply chains: Nike leads the way in redefining the balanced scorecard." I hope it works and that many companies will follow Nike's example.
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