A European-based human rights task force is ramping up efforts to stamp out labour abuses in the Rajasthan sandstone sector.
The Ethical Trading Initiative (ETI), which includes 12 UK and EU-based sandstone importers, plus trade unions and NGOs, has been working with sandstone processing plants in the Indian state on a project to improve their poor reputation for labour rights, including forced and bonded labour and grave health and safety concerns.
The initiative is now being expanded to embed ethical labour and employment practices across the sector’s entire supply chain, including many notoriously dangerous mines and quarries.
“Over the past five years our member companies [which include the sandstone importers Marshall, London Stone and Natural Paving] have been working with local factories and processing yards to implement HR policies, good labour practices, tools to allow workers with a grievance to raise it with their employer and, above all, improved health & safety regulation and enforcement,” said Debbie Coulter, head of programmes at ETI.
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“It has been a huge success, so now we are proposing to roll those procedures out to all the other tiers in the supply chain, including quarry and mine owners, trade unions, NGOs and civil society organisations who can support workers and make sure they are aware of their rights,” added Coulter. “It’s a huge task – Rajasthan is bigger than France or Spain – but having been involved in this process a number of years we know it is achievable.”
UK firms have been importing sandstone from Rajasthan for many years, but only more recently have NGO reports and media stories uncovered suppliers’ labour rights breaches. Last year, the ETI and project members carried out research in the region, which highlighted that while Western markets demand compliance with labour codes and standards, these were often not well enforced by the local industry.
The ETI plans to encourage quarry operators to embed human rights principles into core business principles
The Rajasthan sandstone industry relies largely on migrant workers, who move from quarries to other jobs when the monsoon season hits, and the transient nature of the work makes them more likely to be exploited.
“The entire sector is prone to shifting,” said Hannah Bruce, project leader at ETI. “Mines and quarries move location every seven to nine years when production runs low or as demand for product changes, they are also leased to different owners who change frequently.”
The ETI team plans to develop tools and resources for use by quarry and stone processing yard owners to enable them to embed human rights principles within their core business activities. It’s hoped that this will lead to grievance mechanisms being integrated into business procedures, so that workers have stronger channels for making their voices heard.
“We want to engage many more stakeholders than just employers to ensure that the importance of worker rights is known across region, which will help facilitate and manage this model and make it more practical for quarries to run,” said Bruce.
