Apparel brand H&M has announced the launch of an industrial relations project in collaboration with the International Labour Organization (ILO), and the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (SIDA), for the development of a socially sustainable textile and garment industry in Ethiopia.
The three year project will assist the Ethiopian Government, social partners of H&M, and major industry stakeholders in their efforts to promote social dialogue and improve productivity as well as wages and working conditions by promoting sound labour relations practices and promoting collective bargaining. The project, which will be implemented by ILO along with the Ethiopian Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs, Ministry of Industry, Confederation of Ethiopian Trade Unions and Ethiopian Employers Federation, is being funded by SIDA and H&M.
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“We are engaged in projects which have the aim of strengthening employees’ rights and their ability to negotiate on their own behalf on their terms and conditions through trade unions and or democratic elected employee representatives,” said Anna Gedda, Head of Sustainability, H&M. “Our goal is for all of our strategic supplier factories to have democratically elected and functional workplace representation in place by 2018 at the latest,” she added.
The project is a part of the agreement between the ILO and H&M that was signed in September 2014. A similar project in collaboration with SIDA and ILO is being carried out by H&M in Cambodia.
