Ethical recruitment dilemma

GIVEN increasing interest globally in combating forced labour and modern-day slavery in global supply chains, the Consumer Goods Forum, Responsible Business Alliance, Institute for Human Rights and Business and Humanity United come together today to host the workshop “Driving Responsible Recruitment in Asia” in Malaysia. The Malaysian Human Resources Minister is scheduled to present a keynote speech at this event.

Unethical recruitment is a key driver in placing many migrant workers in situations of forced labour, particularly as a result of debt bondage. Impoverished individuals continue to pay highly for dirty, dangerous and demeaning work during expensive and non-transparent recruitment processes – even for work at companies sourcing to global buyers that claim a commitment to “ethical/zero cost” recruitment.

As a priority, ethical recruitment models that seek to monitor and then control sub-agents or brokers involved in recruitment processes need piloting. A sub-agent or broker, whether lawful or not under local laws, is an indispensable actor in most migrant recruitment channels. Short timelines, complex recruitment processes and worker’s limited education mean that most migrants, even those processed by supposed ethical recruiters, engage sub-agents or brokers during recruitment.

Increasing regulatory pressures on buyers and suppliers to be diligent against forced labour means recruitment agencies in origin countries are simply forbidden to use sub-agents, without any workable alternatives offered. As a result, agencies don’t disclose or even deny using sub-agents. They claim instead workers are referred to them, recruited from extensive databases or simply walk into their offices without engaging or paying sub-agents. More honest recruitment agencies report employers requesting quotations hiding sub-agent costs and turning a blind eye to their fee-taking.

Similarly, migrant workers often don’t reveal how much they pay over the legal limits to sub-agents, brokers or agencies. Workers are increasingly threatened or coached by agents, sub-agents or brokers, sometimes with complicity from employers, to only report payments that comply with local laws. Workers are forced, as a condition of recruitment, to sign affidavits or appear in video statements prior to departure stating they didn’t pay excessive fees or expenses.

This fake ethical recruitment is a result of the general lack of real commitment by global buyers and their suppliers to ensure a move to ethical employer-pays-recruitment, alongside a lack of on-the-ground experience and knowledge of how to harness innovative recruitment practices as solutions to real challenges faced in this field.

In addition, most countries still do not have developed and workable regulations to promote responsible recruitment. And, often, global companies don’t have ethical recruitment policies either. Without policies and regulations, ethical recruitment practices cannot easily be mainstreamed.

Likewise, ethical recruitment costs rarely feature in contracts between global buyers, public procurement agencies and their suppliers but are instead “social compliance” requests made by CSR or human rights teams.

“Aspirations” often don’t translate into the conversations of buying teams with suppliers on purchase price and production timelines that dictate what will happen in reality during migrant worker recruitment, and that determine who will cover the recruitment costs.

As a result of this limited private sector and government commitment to ethical recruitment, a “kickbacks” recruitment business model remains prevalent. Companies and their HR teams are paid to issue demand letters for hiring migrants to informally selected recruitment agencies. This is instead of actually paying fees to agencies for the workers they hire.

Compounding this situation, systemic corruption within multiple government agencies brought about by overly bureaucratic recruitment processes is present in origin, transit and destination countries. Corruption is often facilitated by the local recruitment agencies themselves.

Taken together, the prevalence of systems of “kickbacks” and “corruption” ensure sub-agents or brokers at the end of the recruitment supply chains take money from workers just to ensure that all actors, private sector and government, in a bloated supply chain are paid.

Alternative recruitment models that address some of these challenges need to be piloted with real lessons learnt and shared. Since 2015, Thai Union Group has worked with the Migrant Worker Rights Network in Thailand and Myanmar to monitor and control its recruiters’ use of sub-agents in recruitment processes for more than 30,000 migrant workers from Myanmar. This alternative and relatively successful model of interactive migrant worker recruitment – albeit not without its challenges and not fully ethical or zero cost – should be studied carefully.

While driving responsible recruitment forward, importantly, remedies for systemic debt bondage of migrant workers already unfairly recruited must also be ensured.

Yet the requirement imposed by Principle 22 of the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights for remediation following incidents of unethical recruitment remain unfulfilled.

Likewise, a September 2018 pledge by the governments of Australia, Britain, Canada, New Zealand and the United States at the UN General Assembly to apply ethical recruitment and remediation principles to public procurement supply chains remains rhetoric rather than a reality.

Finally, in addition to focusing on migrant recruitment processes, it is crucial that we address the critical situation of an estimated 500,000 or more “irregular” migrant workers stranded in debt bondage and forced labour in Malaysia, resulting from the previous government’s rehiring and

regularisation scheme collapse.

These victims, paying up to US$2,000 (RM8,000) for a 2016 to 2018 failed regularisation process, need to be remediated and regularised urgently prior to, or at the same time as, considering how to recruit new workers into Malaysia ethically.

Responsible recruitment can only be driven forward if increasing rhetoric and theory on ethical migrant worker recruitment is applied in practice. This requires that innovative and realistic

models of recruitment and remediation be piloted and evaluated.

Genuine commitment of resources and effort from all stakeholders, alongside worker-driven social monitoring, is also essential.

Actors driving ethical migrant worker recruitment dialogue must also, if they are to ensure positive change, develop a proper understanding of how to ensure ethical recruitment practices in reality on the ground.

ANDY HALL

Migrant Worker Rights Specialist