2015 Annual Public Report

In early 2015, the FLA took a major step toward realizing long-standing organizational and member commitments to ensure that workers in global supply chains earn fair compensation for their labor, as required by the FLA Workplace Code of Conduct. At its February 2015 meeting, the FLA Board of Directors unanimously approved the implementation of the organization’s new Fair Compensation Work Plan, which began with the introduction of a comprehensive wage-data collection effort as part of the FLA’s 2015 factory and farm assessment cycle.  The results of this effort were published in the first annual FLA report on workers’ wages, “Toward Fair Compensation in Global Supply Chains.”

In addition to the progress on the FLA’s Fair Compensation initiative, the 2015 Annual Public Report below details progress on many other issues of critical importance to improving working conditions in factories and farms worldwide.  Among other highlights from 2015, this report demonstrates the FLA’s collaboration with companies, universities, and civil society organizations to engage with governments on higher minimum wages (see p. 12); to deepen supply chain traceability efforts beyond the first tier (see p. 52), and to inspire students to become more involved in collegiate supply chain issues (see p. 18).  This report also recognizes company progress and impressive performance, including two instances of exemplary compliance with social insurance requirements in China (pages 27 and 29); recognition for six companies engaged with FLA fire safety trainings (page 48); and commendation for FLA members that voluntarily, publicly disclose information about their factories (pages 33 – 35).  Pages 22 – 41 detail the FLA’s overall findings from its 2015 factory and farm monitoring program, and pages 42 – 45 explain the outcomes of all 2015 Third Party Complaint investigations, which affected the lives of around 42,000 workers.

As then-president and CEO Sharon Waxman states in her opening letter, it is the FLA’s hope that the accomplishments of 2015 will inspire “even greater cooperation to improve the lives of the women and men who manufacture our clothing, shoes, and accessories, and grow and harvest the food we serve to our families.  It is their hard work on our behalf that inspires us to continuously improve the work we do on their behalf.”