Worker-driven monitoring
What is worker-driven monitoring?
Worker-driven monitoring is an investigative methodology used to collect credible evidence of human rights risks and violations. Unlike compliance and assurance regimes, worker-driven monitoring prioritises the needs and perspectives of workers.
Our monitoring partners
To conduct monitoring, Electronics Watch partners with civil society organisations and independent researchers based in countries where manufacturing, smelting and mining in electronics and LEV supply chains takes place. Their staff are experts in labour rights and are trained in our monitoring methodology. They do not accept funding from the companies they monitor to ensure there are no conflicts of interest.
Our monitoring partners are trusted by the workers who they interview. They are located near workers' communities and often have established relationships with workers through educational programmes or other service provision. This commonly includes offering training on their rights and helping workers to access social and legal services they need. Workers therefore often report issues to them that they might not discuss with social auditors whom they have never met.
Monitoring partners meet with workers in conditions that minimize the fear of reprisals for reporting abuses. Interviews and focus groups are not announced to the employer and are conducted off-site. This helps to mitigate against pressure from employers not to speak out and reduces the likelihood that workers who participate will face retaliation. Our monitoring partners are well-suited to reach workers without putting them in harm's way because they understand the local context and languages. Many staff have additional skills, for example speaking the languages of large migrant worker communities. This is key to building trust.
Electronics Watch supports monitoring partners to collaborate with democratic, independent trade unions and worker representatives to provide an external grievance mechanism and drive remedy.
Find out more about our monitoring partners.
What is the goal of worker-driven monitoring?
The objective of worker-driven monitoring is to stop harm that's already occurring, prevent it from reoccurring, provide reparations to those who experienced harm, and improve workplaces in electronics supply chains. This differs from audits, which can be used for a variety of purposes and assess compliance with a code of conduct or criteria. Like audits, worker-driven monitoring usually incorporates qualitative and quantitative methods that draw on a range of primary and secondary evidence sources. However, worker-driven monitoring places greater emphasis on worker testimonies and relations of trust with workers. Worker-driven approaches require meaningful stakeholder engagement while audits - and the resulting corrective action plans - do not.
How we decide where to monitor
There are two ways that we select production sites for monitoring. The first is bottom up, meaning that a worker, trade union or worker rights organisation tells us about human rights risks at a particular site. We review the evidence and check for links between the site and the products purchased by our affiliates. If initial information is credible and there is sufficient leverage, we will begin monitoring.
The second pathway is top down. We review production sites in affiliate supply chains and assess how much leverage we have, for example the number of affiliates linked to a site and their procurement spend. We also assess the severity of risks to workers, whether these relate to international labour standards and/or applicable law, the presence of vulnerable populations (like migrant workers, students, contract workers, women), and the likelihood that our intervention will have a positive impact on workers.
Learn more about the scope of our monitoring
Once an investigation is underway, we keep workers informed of findings wherever possible. We make sure they are included in corrective action and remediation, including identifying appropriate reparations. See the next page to learn more about our work on remediation.