Stop Modern Slavery

Stopping modern slavery is not a single act, and no business should claim to have done it. What an Australian organisation can realistically do is make itself harder to use and easier to report to. The most under-used lever in that work is hearing directly from the workers in its supply chain rather than only from the companies that employ them.

Most supply chain assurance asks a supplier about itself. Questionnaires, policy attestations and desk-based audits all rely on the party with the most to lose from an honest answer. Workers see the roster, the deductions and the accommodation arrangement, and they are rarely asked in a setting where answering is safe.

The Cleaning Accountability Framework, an Australian multi-stakeholder body that certifies cleaning supply chains in commercial buildings, is built around that gap. Its standard covers labour, responsible contracting, work health and safety, financial viability, worker engagement and remediation. Cleaners are met in paid time, surveyed about their working conditions, and a representative is nominated from among them. Its remediation procedure is written to protect anonymity and reduce the risk of repercussions for speaking up.

Four things follow from that, whatever your organisation buys:

• Give people a reporting route that does not run through their own employer, then check whether anyone ever uses it.
• Pay for the time if you ask workers to take part. Unpaid consultation selects for the people least at risk.
• Decide what happens after a disclosure, and who owns it, before you invite one.
• Treat silence as a question rather than an answer.

The same logic applies inside your own walls, through incident reporting, whistleblower protections and the workplace culture that decides whether a concern is raised at all. The Cleaning Accountability Framework is an industry initiative rather than a regulator, so treat its standard as good practice rather than a legal requirement. Obligations differ by sector and change over time, so this is general information rather than legal advice.

Sentrient’s modern slavery course sits within the wider compliance training courses library.