SHARED CHALLENGES

Our priorities include active collaboration with stakeholders across the garment sector on the search for common solutions in the field of human and labour rights.

A supply chain with a reach in 50 different markets unearths multiple challenges, most importantly in the field of human and labour rights. For example, women empowerment.

To tackle them, at Inditex we guarantee the traceability of our production chain, we enforce an exhaustive audit and compliance regime and we train our suppliers and our in-house and external experts. We believe that only by working hand in hand with the various sector players will we arrive at the solutions needed to resolve our shared challenges.  

On the collaborative front, our relationship with local and international trade unions in particular stands out. These unions play a key role in ensuring we improve the sustainability of our entire production chain. We firmly believe that fostering workers' freedom of association and encouraging their participation in dialogue is essential to negotiating improved labour and wage conditions.

In 2007, we formalised our relationship with the unions by entering into a Global Framework Agreement with IndustriALL Global Union, which represents more than 50 million workers affiliated with nearly 600 unions all over the world.

This pioneering agreement was the first to encompass the entire supply chain of a retail company. It was designed to uphold and promote the international standards enshrined in the conventions of the United Nations, International Labour Organisation (ILO) and the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), which are in turn echoed in our Code of Conduct for Manufacturers and Suppliers.