Tag: Forced Labor

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Daily Compliance News

May 5, 2023 – The Corruption is a Cancer Edition

Welcome to the Daily Compliance News. Each day, Tom Fox, the Voice of Compliance, brings you compliance-related stories to start your day. Sit back, enjoy a cup of morning coffee, and listen to the Daily Compliance News. All from the Compliance Podcast Network. Each day we consider four stories from the business world, compliance, ethics, risk management, leadership, or general interest for the compliance professional.

Stories we are following in today’s edition:

  • Doing business in China is getting much riskier. (NYT)
  • Canada passes anti-forced labor law. (WSJ)
  • Guilty verdict in NFT insider trading trial. (WSJ)
  • EU seeks to harmonize ABC laws. (EUObserver)
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Coming Conflict with China

Coming Conflict with China: Part 2-Supply Chain Issues

In the short span of the 21st Century, the world’s two top powers, the United States and China have moved inexplicably toward a showdown. This evolved from a commercial competition into something more akin to permanent non-kinetic warfare. What does this mean for US business doing business in and with China? In this special 5-part podcast series, Tom Fox and Brandon Daniels, CEO of Exiger, a leading global third-party and supply chain management software company, explore issues diverse as a real danger, supply chain, exports, cyber-attacks, and IP theft from the business perspective and give the compliance and business executive their viewpoints on what you can do to not only prepare your company but protect it as well. In Part II, we discuss the issues in the Supply Chain, including issues of human rights, forced labor, and supply chain management in the Asia Pacific region.

Obviously, the issues around Uyghur forced labor in China are an important consideration for all American businesses with supply chains in China. While that issue focuses on human rights, it is also a wider world economic issue that requires a business solution. The key is to diversify the supply of goods, investing in other countries’ manufacturing capabilities to ensure that human rights abuses do not go unchecked.

Key Highlights:

1. What is the inextricable connection between human rights and economic policy when it comes to current geopolitical tensions with China?
2. How is the subjugation of Uyghurs in Xinjiang impacting the global economy?
3. What risks does reliance on China’s manufacturing pose for businesses, and how can companies diversify their supply chain to mitigate them?

Notable Quote

“It just takes investment. It takes time, but it’s an investment worth having because it provides us security in the potential and the ever more serious potential of a conflict with China.”

Resources

Exiger

Tom Fox

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Other episodes in this Series:
Episode 1-From Potential Conflict to Real Danger

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Daily Compliance News

December 29, 2022 – The How Big Tech Got it Wrong Edition

Welcome to the Daily Compliance News. Each day, Tom Fox, the Voice of Compliance, brings you four compliance-related stories to start your day. Sit back, enjoy a cup of morning coffee and listen to the Daily Compliance News. All from the Compliance Podcast Network.

Stories we are following in today’s edition of Daily Compliance News:

  • EU corruption target denied bail. (Reuters)
  • 3 companies were barred from using forced labor. (WSJ)
  • How big tech got it wrong. (FT)
  • Novartis pays $245MM to settle an anti-trust case. (Reuters)
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Hidden Traffic Podcast

Forced Labor and Fast Fashion with Mike McDonnell


 
Mike McDonnell, a CSR/ESG Consultant to the RBA/RLI and a founding member of the Responsible Business Alliance’s Responsible Labor Initiative, joins host Gwen Hassan to discuss the impact of fast fashion on workers, forced labor, and the responsibility of companies to ensure that they don’t use vendors and suppliers who engage in unethical and harmful practices.  
 

 
Many workers who end up in the grips of human trafficking often flee hardship and poverty. This makes them targets for exploitation by agencies and facilities. Mike explains that some workers have to pay fees to be hired, and because of these fees, they are put under tremendous pressure by the employers. The workers feel indebted to the ones exploiting them, allowing their superiors to maintain a sense of control over them. Companies may also be receiving free hiring services and benefits through human trafficking, sometimes without their knowledge.
The workers pay fees in two ways: above board by charging limits or extracting cash in rougher aspects. These fees are ongoing so that workers can keep their heads down and out of the line of fire. There are digital programs put in place to audit this. Surveys are given to workers with questions on whether anyone has asked them for money. One of the positives about this type of technology is that companies can monitor real-time when these situations arise.
It’s not enough to not harm a company. It’s not enough to say that you’re following your code of ethics. You have to show it in your actions and break it down to its elements. Rethink your tools, assess your suppliers and their business practices, and these can become your rail factors on whether or not to engage in business with them. If they present too much risk, or you cannot prove that they aren’t engaging in unethical behavior, you will have to rethink your outsourcing.
 
Resources
Mike McDonnell on LinkedIn 
Responsible Labor Initiative
 

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Compliance Kitchen

Forced Labor Guidance


CBP issues a forced labor program visual guidance. Listen in as the Kitchen reviews this resource for importers.

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Compliance Kitchen

CPB FAQ’s Re: Forced Labor


The CBP recently answered FAQs in regards to its detection and enforcement of regulations against imports of products made with forced labor.  Stop by to hear a summary from The Kitchen on imports compliance and exclusion from CBP’s Withhold Release Orders.