Verité is a global NGO that works with multi-national companies to improve respect for human rights in global supply chains.  Verité’s services – social assessments, capacity building and research -- help companies and other stakeholders fully understand labor issues, overcome obstacles, and build sustainable solutions into their supply chains, benefiting companies and workers alike. 

Verité focuses specifically on the people who make and grow goods that end up in global supply chains. As a result, we take aim at the worst problems that have challenged businesses for decades: forced labor, child labor, dangerous conditions, unpaid work, sexual harassment and discrimination.

Among Verité’s clients include Apple, HP, Gap, New Balance, Philip Morris International, Walmart, Primark, Next, Disney. We are also supported by foundations and aid agencies including the Skoll Foundation, Humanity United and the United States Departments of State and Labor. 

We measure our success by increases in income, safety and opportunity for vulnerable workers, and increases in transparency and stability for businesses.

Key accomplishments in 2010 - 2011

Debt-bondage, Labor Migration and Modern-Day Slavery

• Verité and the global staffing agency Manpower Group released an Ethical Framework on Cross-Border Labor Recruitment to change hiring practices and reduce human rights risk around the world.  This Framework will be promulgated by the staffing industry globally in partnership with multinational brands to address the biggest source of risk faced by many companies: the debt-bondage that results from labor migration.
• In partnership with just a single leading electronics company, Verité helped return 10 million dollars to several hundred poor migrant workers in Asia who had been charged excessive fees by labor brokers.
• Verité’s Help Wanted Initiative and Fair Hiring Toolkit provide open-source, publicly-available resources to companies and other stakeholders as they seek to improve social responsibility and resolve risk for vulnerable workers.
• Recognized as a leading voice within the NGO Coalition Alliance to End Slavery and Trafficking.

Systems Change

• Verité’s partnership with several of the world’s largest retailers has implemented, in 11,000 factories globally, a management system that results in positive impact for businesses and workers.  The Verité Systems Approach helps businesses integrate social responsibility into their existing business systems.
• Verité and the China Higher Education Press published China’s first textbook on corporate responsibility.
• Improved safety, pay and equity in construction and service sectors in Abu Dhabi and Jordan through collaboration with multinational partners from higher education and infrastructure sectors.
• Benefit for vulnerable workers in factories and on farms
• Verité worked with growers in the southern US to improve pay and working conditions for 10,000 farmworkers.
• Transformed social responsibility for a global agricultural company to the benefit of 250,000 farmworkers and 750,000 smallholder farmers.
• Built mechanisms by which workers can voice their opinions in Chinese factories serving apparel, footwear, electronics and hard goods sectors.

Click here for more information on Verité.