OLAM Hazels Working With Labor Contractors For The Rights of Seasonal Migrants Workers
On 20 November 2015, United States Department of Labor’s (U.S.D.O.L.) in coordination with the Fair Labor Association (FLA) started a project titled as “Cooperation for Prevention of Child and Forced Labor: Pilot Project for Trial of USDA Application Recommendations in Hazelnut Supply Chain in Turkey.” FLA is the implementing organization Olam is implementing partners.
This project will be realized between November 2015 and June 2018.
Under the USDOL project Olam cooperates with the Foundation for the Support of Women’s Work, Young Life Foundation (GHV) and Pikolo Association in various projects. As Olam, we will continue these collaborations until June of 2018.
As a subproject of the USDOL Project, in 2017 Olam collaborated with the Pikolo Association (a local nongovernmental organization working on seasonal migrant workers especially women and children) on a project titled as "Project of Creating the Database of Agricultural Intermediaries and Eliminating Child Labor with the Method of Creating Awareness” (From now on “The Database of Labor Contractors Project”)
Labor Contractors are key people in the seasonal agricultural labor. The most important indicator is the lack of a database of agricultural intermediaries for the employment problems of agricultural workers, elimination of child labor, creating risk map of the traceable supply chain and the solution of the problems.
For this reason agricultural intermediaries are the main target group of the project.
By way of project implementation, it is targeted
• to ensure the improvement of the employment conditions of seasonal agricultural workers,
• to eliminate child labor,
• to create traceable supply chain.
It is important to have a healthy agricultural intermediary database and to train agricultural intermediaries to ensure sustainability and traceability. The expected outcome of the project is that the labor contractors become certified from the Local Governmental Employment Agency and becomes registered into the system.
When the labor contractors are registered and working in line with the relevant legislation, it will
⦁ support the registration of seasonal migrant workers,
⦁ to prevent working of children under the age of sixteen,
⦁ to improve working conditions,
⦁ to prevent cuts from workers’ wages,
⦁ to ensure the wage guarantee of the workers,
⦁ to operate in accordance with the working procedures and principles set by the Local Commissions,
⦁ to improve the living conditions of seasonal agricultural migrant workers,
Within the scope of the project, the Pikolo Association conducted field visits, interviews with labor contractors. The data collection tool was prepared and tested by Pikolo experts.
The Database of Labor Contractors Project was conducted in the cities of Ordu, Düzce and Sakarya in 277 farms in 46 villages, including 6 districts. The project reached the information on "Name-Surname-Address Information-Gender-Age and Education" of 277 agriculture intermediaries. Through this project Olam informed 277 labor contractors about the employment contract in agriculture, the prevention of child labor, the working conditions of the workers and the seasonal agricultural employment contract. At the end of the project, a strong database will be formed on agricultural intermediaries in the specified regions. Following the identifications in the project, the registration of the agricultural intermediaries to Local Employment Agency (İşKur) is very important for the improvement of the employment conditions. In the trainings, the agricultural intermediaries will be informed especially on the elimination of child labor, protecting children’s rights, and their legal responsibilities.
The presence of a registered workforce will allow workers to receive wages they are entitled to economically and to be under the social security system. There will also be a digital mapping of information collected in the field. That database will also include information of the route that seasonal migrant workers are following in different products, all the other agricultural products that they work with, and the lists of the workers they work for all year round.
Under the “The Database of Labor Contractors Project” Pikolo Association and Olam will provide trainings in Şanlıurfa and Mardin; two cities in the south-east region of Turkey where most of the seasonal migrant workers live. Şanlıurfa and Mardin İŞKUR (Republic of Turkey Turkish Employment Agency) will be present in the trainings to register the labor contractors. These trainings will take place on 30th of January 2018 in Şanlıurfa and 1st of February 2018 in Mardin.
Before this training, Olam came together with all the stakeholders involved in the USDOL project for the development of a training module to include FLA Code of Conduct and all the necessary information regarding a sustainable supply chain. It is very important to create such trainings with all the parties such as hazelnut exporters, local NGOs, NGOs working on women’s rights and children. This workshop took place in Ankara on 26-27th of December 2017.
During the harvest season of 2018 Olam’s social workers in the Sustainability Department whom are working on the field will provide 1 to 1 counseling to registered agricultural labor contractors. Olam will pilot this project in the harvest of 2018. In order to control the implementation of the project Olam will conduct internal audits. At the end of the harvest of 2018 Olam will make an Assessment and plan for the next period.