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Company Response

27 May 2024

H&M's response (Just for Show report)

[...]

To support strengthened industrial relations, we have signed a global framework agreement with IndustriAll and IF Metal. National Monitoring Committees (NMCs) consisting of H&M Group employees and local trade union representatives implement the agreement in Bangladesh, Cambodia, India, Indonesia and Türkiye...

Together with 19 other global brands, we’ve partnered with IndustriALL to form ACT (Action, Collaboration, Transformation). Our joint goal is to achieve living wages by supporting collective bargaining, freedom of association and responsible purchasing practices. ACT is operating in three key production countries Bangladesh, Cambodia and Türkiye.

Hung Wah, Cambodia

We can confirm that Hung Wah (Cambodia) is an active supplier to H&M Group.

According to the last report by Better Factories Cambodia (BFC), there are in fact 24 active trade unions at the facility, 4 of them are affiliates to IndustriAll. We acknowledge that this might be confusing for workers, but so far we have found no case, nor concern indicating that the rights to freedom of association and collective bargaining are undermined.

The last BFC assessment was conducted in October 2023 and no violations with our minimum requirements nor with BFCs critical issues was found as shown in this public overview of findings.

Within the area of industrial relations BFCs critical issues include workers right to freely from and join (or not to join) a union, no control of nor interference with union by management as well as no discrimination against workers based on union membership.

Dekko Design, Bangladesh

We can confirm that Dekko Design (Bangladesh) is an active supplier to H&M Group. This case was raised through the ACT Interim Dispute Resolution Mechanism and we have been actively involved in resolving it through for example fact finding sessions and interviews of impacted workers, mediation role between the two parties (management and trade union) and follow up with factory management on the actions points agreed in meetings with the parties. In that process we collaborated with IndustriAll, their affiliate trade union BGIWF, factory management and other brands sourcing from Dekko Design and we are thankful to all stakeholders who contributed to that an agreement could be reached in the end....

PT Sai Apparel, Indonesia

We can confirm that PT Sai Apparel, Indonesia is an active supplier to H&M Group.

The last assessment by Better Work Indonesia was conducted in December 2023 and revealed indications of preferential treatment towards one union.

We are actively involved in this case and our colleagues in Indonesia have been in direct contact with the trade union, the supplier and Better Work Indonesia to help resolve it. We have made it clear to the supplier that we expect them to uphold Freedom of Association and that discrimination based on union status is unacceptable. We encouraged them to continue to build a social dialogue between workers/unions and management in the factory, specifically to resolve any issue that may arise at the factory in good faith. We will continue to work on this issue with local stakeholders...

One way to ensure access to remedy when violations occur are effective grievance mechanisms. We expect all our suppliers to have a grievance mechanism in place so that workers can raise a concern.

In 2023 we updated our Labour Rights Survey...More than 205,000 workers completed the worker survey which we combined with a selection of third party factory data (collected through HIGG FSLM). As a result, we have visibility of how effective factory grievance mechanisms are according to the UNGPs criteria. We are now working with our strategic suppliers to create tailored roadmaps designed to strengthen social dialogue and grievance mechanisms in the factories in order to improve access to remedy for workers.

[The full response is attached]

Timeline