The Rainforest Alliance is aware of the allegations of nonconformances of our certification program on select tea estates in Sri Lanka, which were reported by Reuters on 27 March 2019.
The Rainforest Alliance welcomes this report. These inputs add value to our work and helps to inform our continued efforts in improving both environmental and social issues on farms and plantations in the 60 countries where we work.
As part of our own, independent investigation, we began investigative audits on the farms in question immediately upon being notified of the report. Preliminary results carried out by the authorized certification body confirmed there were no forced labor practices detected in these unannounced audits, wages paid are aligned with the national Collective Bargaining Agreement for Sri Lanka, and most of the wage deductions appear to be legal, but improvement need to be made in properly communicating these deductions to workers.
The payment of minimum wage is a critical criteria in the Rainforest Alliance Sustainable Agriculture Standard. Certified farms must fully comply with critical criteria in order to achieve or maintain certification; farms that do not comply with our standard stand to have their certification suspended or cancelled if our own investigation confirms the allegations.
The Rainforest Alliance is continuously working to improve its certification program and is proactively looking at ways to significantly strengthen its assurance system. We have recently taken steps to increase the assurance mechanisms of audits including increased and regular unannounced audits. Following our merger with UTZ, a new standard is set to be published at the end of 2019. See more information on the development of our new standard.
The Rainforest Alliance is a co-founder of the Global Living Wage Coalition, a coalition of six standards systems that supports the development of and promotes a new methodology for determining a basic, decent standard of living in different countries.
There is an ongoing Living wage benchmark study for Sri Lanka as part of the benchmarks commissioned through the Global Living Wage Coalition (GLWC). It has not been finalized, so therefore, at this time there is no concrete Living Wage estimate to be communicated to the tea estates. Within the Rainforest Alliance certification program, in the absence of a Living Wage benchmark, estates do not have to assess prevailing wages against the Living Wage. Workers on certified estates must receive the applicable minimum wage according to national law at all times. Deductions from wages are allowed only in accordance and to the extent prescribed by national laws or fixed by collective bargaining agreement.
One of the ways to support a living wage is to address the low minimum wage levels in the countries where the Rainforest Alliance works. In some countries, minimum wage is often set well below the level that allows workers to have a decent standard of living. To that end, we are partnering with the International Labour Organization (ILO) to develop methodologies that will empower governments and other stakeholders to negotiate and set adequate wage levels, taking into consideration the needs of the workers and their families, as well as the economic factors of supply chains.
The Rainforest Alliance believes that worker rights and well-being are of the utmost importance; they are an integral part of our standard. The Rainforest Alliance Sustainable Agriculture Standard has strict requirements on forced labor and other topics regarding working conditions, based on the ILO conventions. These requirements cover a wide spectrum of topics, including the prohibition of forced labor, child labor and discrimination, access to clean drinking water, sanitation and health care, and the rights of freedom of association and collective bargaining. In addition, compliance with local labor law is mandatory.
The Rainforest Alliance believes that partnership and collaboration are key in addressing the major sustainability challenges faced in the tea sector. Certification alone cannot solve any country’s entrenched socioeconomic problems. Our work is a joint effort with producers and other actors in the supply chain; without the collaboration of these other actors – including governments, companies and NGOs, no certification program can resolve these challenges alone. We take our role in this context very seriously – the Rainforest Alliance remains committed to improving living conditions on certified farms in Sri Lanka and around the globe. In close collaboration with local and global stakeholders, we will continue to do our part to bring these challenging sectors to a more sustainable reality.
The Rainforest Alliance is a founding and full member of the International Social and Environmental Accreditation and Labelling Alliance (ISEAL), an organization established to strengthen the integrity of social and environmental certification systems and whose members are international standard-setting, certification, and accreditation organizations.