A practical toolkit for brands
Finding Hidden Homeworkers in Apparel & Footwear Supply Chains
Homeworkers, mainly women, are often engaged in informal tiers of apparel and footwear supply chains beyond the factory. Their precarious employment, out of sight of auditors and inspectors, combined with weak or absent legal protections, put them at risk of exploitation, and they have some of the worst pay and conditions of any workers in the value chain. The lack of visibility of homeworkers hampers the ability of international Brands and retailers to address the issues of homeworkers within their own supply chains.
This is a toolkit to help businesses (and organisations working with them) improve transparency about homeworking within their supply chains.
The toolkit was produced by Homeworkers Worldwide (HWW) and Cividep India, in collaboration with Traidcraft Exchange, under the EU co-funded Hidden Homeworkers Project.
We launched our toolkit in November 2021. You can watch the official launch in this video and all the tools are freely available to download below.
The Tools.
Implementing transparency in homeworker chains is not rocket science.
It can be done through simple paper-based systems, agreed and implemented through discussions and consultations with suppliers, subcontractors and homeworkers.
The tools below provide templates that you can use. If you need any help using any of the tools please get in touch and we'd be happy to help.
A template homeworking policy that can adapted for your company.
Based on MoUs used in mapping homeworking in apparel and footwear chains. It can be adapted to suit and may be developed incrementally.
This document is a model for the content of written contracts between the factory/supplier and subcontractors when employing homeworkers.
Brand policies or supplier codes may have clauses which inhibit transparency around subcontracting, which can lead suppliers to conceal subcontracting.
This document captures learning around how to go about discussing piece rates with homeworkers.
This model policy can be adapted and adopted by suppliers in discussion with their brand customers.
This is a template for a homeworker pass book, which is used to record orders, payments and work completed by homeworkers.
These guidelines outline good practice for quality control and handling rejection of faulty work, which should be discussed, adapted, and adopted by suppliers and subcontractors employing homeworkers.
Subcontractors are key players in gaining access to homeworkers and should be engaged as equal partners in the process.
A simple template for costing and pricing a product.
This is a model for purchase orders placed with subcontractors for production carried out by homeworkers. It can be adapted to local circumstances and to match existing systems.
This is a model template, which can be adapted to suit local circumstances and existing systems, for written contracts between the subcontractor and the homeworker.
This document captures learning around engagement between apparel and footwear brands, their suppliers and NGOs.
This document captures learning around engaging with homeworkers and conducting an informal discussion involving a small focus group of homeworkers.
