The Ethical Trading Initiative (ETI) is an alliance of companies, trade unions and NGOs that promotes respect for workers' rights around the globe by ensuring compliance with international labour standards in the global supply chains of member companies. Minimum ethical standards are set out in the ETI Base Code of labour practice, but this initiative also brings together these parties to collectively tackle many issues that cannot be addressed by individual companies working alone.
To this end, members of the initiative establish working groups to help companies effectively implement the Base Code in their respective supply chains. They carry out joint projects and build strategic alliances in key sourcing countries or on an international level to improve workers' rights in these supply chains, with a view to creating work cultures where workers can confidently negotiate with management about the issues that concern them.
The cross-border social dialogue component
ETI members include global companies with thousands of suppliers, the UK Trades Union Congress (TUC) and the following global union organisations: the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC), the International Transport Workers' Federation (ITF) and the IUF, which represents food, agricultural and hospitality workers across the world.
Company, trade union and NGO members play equal parts in shaping the ETI’s thinking and the way it works.
The members of these three groupings (companies, trade unions and NGOs) are equally represented in the governance body of the initiative (with four seats for each category) and participate in the day-to-day activity of the initiative (various programmes, advocacy, collective action). Meanwhile, as part of the complaints procedure the ETI follows to investigate an apparent serious failure by a member company to implement membership obligations, the alliance facilitates contact and collaboration between the country's trade unions and the company to address the problem.