International Labour Standards

ILO and Pakistan Textile Exporters Association (PTEA) agree to jointly promote ‘International Labour Standards in Textile Industries in Pakistan’

The Pakistan Textiles Exporters Association has partnered with ILO for technical assistance in helping the association and its members in designing, developing and enforcing a self-inspection system.

Feature | 20 August 2014
The Pakistan Textiles Exporters Association has partnered with International Labour Organization (ILO) for technical assistance in helping the association and its members in designing, developing and enforcing a self-inspection system. ILO’s technical support to PTEA will help it develop an ILS monitoring mechanism through the implementation of Workplace Improvement Programs that will contribute to sustaining the industry and market Pakistan as an ethical sourcing destination (link).

Under this collaboration, ILO will provide technical assistance that will focus on the textile and garment industry and will provide assessment, advisory and training expertise to participating factories. The ultimate goal is to have industry-wide implementation of national labour laws and International Labour Standards in the country and impact 15 million women and men (about 30% of the 49 million workforce in the country) employed in textiles and garments sector. The programme focuses on scalable and sustainable solutions that build cooperation between governments, employers’ and workers’ organizations and international buyers.

The project has been designed for improving productivity, competitiveness and labour standards focusing mainly on textile manufacturing sector mostly for the exporting factories. The objectives of the ILO support to PTEA for ‘ILS Compliance by Textile industries’ are:
  1. Improve respect for national laws and international labour standards in Pakistani textile factories;
  2. Develop buyers confidence that standards in these factories are being publicly monitored, reliably and accurately reported; and
  3. Establish a coordination between textile Industries and Labour Department for appropriate reporting on ILS Compliance at workplaces
This technical support will be provided at two levels i.e., (a) at Association level; and (b) support at Factory/Enterprise level. The pilot phase will initially target 10 factories followed by an increase in number of factories covering all 150-180 units in Faisalabad in 3 years.

The project will assist the workers and employers of selected target factories to work together to design and implement a workplace improvement plan, with the aim of achieving improvements in working conditions and productivity. The participating companies will create a workplace cooperation structures, i.e. the workplace improvement committee (WIC) in each factory. The WIC shall undertake an initial assessment of the issues that require improvement with regards to an array of labour laws, safety and health, and productivity matters.

A detailed implementation framework is being developed for effective implementation of the project activities. Subsequently a Memorandum of Understanding will be designed and signed by end of August between key stakeholders of this collaboration; Pakistan Textiles Exporters Association and International Labour Organization.