EFI relaunches Responsible Recruitment Scorecard
The Equitable Food Initiative has relaunched its online Responsible Recruitment Scorecard as an interactive version with a digital self-assessment to help growers identify their risk factors in the recruitment process and pursue recommended action steps.
The scorecard, developed with the support from the Walmart Foundation, helps bolster the fresh produce industry’s commitment to the Ethical Charter on Responsible Labor Practices, according to a news release.
The Responsible Recruitment Scorecard is available free in both English and Spanish at http://www.equitablefood.org/scorecard. With the tool, the release said grower-shippers can choose from two versions of a detailed questionnaire — one designed to help identify risks that are often associated with the foreign recruitment of workers and another to determine risks that can be present when working with farm labor contractors.
After the confidential questionnaire is filled in, the release said the scorecard calculates key areas growers can address to drive continuous improvement across their recruitment processes, and it provides directional guidance.
The scorecard is a self-assessment that helps identify often invisible risks, and the results of the scorecard can be used to determine which recruiters and farm labor contractors are most aligned with the ethos of the business and to identify partnerships that further reduce business vulnerabilities around forced labor.
“As use of the H-2A program continues to increase in the United States it is critically important that participants formalize relationships and increase due diligence to avoid the well-documented social risks that come with international recruitment,” Matt Rogers, co-founder and general manager of AgSocio said in an e-mail. “No one in the supply chain wants the liabilities associated with sloppy H-2A recruiting.”
Rogers said the new version of the EFI Responsible Recruitment Scorecard is a user-friendly online tool that will help growers or labor providers “ask the right questions and implement practical steps” to improve their labor supply chain.
“I especially like how the scorecard lists relevant documents to create or check for and categorizes topics into high, moderate and low risk,” Rogers said. “The recommended actions at the end are a helpful summary to plan your next steps.”
Data from the Polaris Project shows that 41% of human trafficking reports from workers with temporary work visas come from H-2A workers in agriculture. Of those, statistics show that the majority are in the fresh produce industry. Many of the cases also involve payment of recruitment fees, according to the release.
“Responsible recruitment matters to producers not just because bad practices expose them and their customers to severe commercial risks, but also because ethical recruitment results in better alignment of organizational and worker interests, improving food safety, productivity and quality,” Kenton Harmer, managing director of EFI, said in the release.
The the produce industry’s 2018 release of the Ethical Charter on Responsible Labor Practices created an increased demand for social responsibility and called for every farmworker to be treated with dignity and respect; the document also states that employers must not tolerate modern slavery, including debt bondage.
“The responsible recruitment of workers is an important and complicated issue that isn’t expected to be addressed quickly or easily,” Keith Neal, vice president/general merchandise manager of fresh produce for Costco Wholesale, said in the release. “We are interested in doing business with suppliers who are learning to understand the complexity of the issue, and to elevate responsible recruitment practices. Using EFI’s Responsible Recruitment Scorecard is one definitive way to begin the process.”
Andrea Rojas, director of strategic initiatives on labor trafficking for Polaris, said in an e-mail that abuse and exploitation of agricultural workers can happen at multiple levels due to the complex labor supply chain of recruiters, managers, contractors, subcontractors, growers, and buyers. “The EFI Responsible Recruitment Scorecard it’s a great tool for fresh produce growers to get better oversight into the people and systems in their labor supply chain and help ensure workers aren’t paying unlawful recruitment fees to unscrupulous recruiters,” he said.
