Supporting workers is a multi-stakeholder affair: from certifying bodies, local governments and brands to the factories employing them, workers are the reason we are dedicated to improving labour conditions. Mosaic is working toward a world where the common goal between stakeholders is the promotion and support of a safe, stable and fulfilled workforce. Each stakeholder group has a specific role and responsibility in making that happen. Mosaic’s role as a public benefit corporation is to support each stakeholder in their specific needs to achieve this goal.
Workers
Due to a predominantly top-down approach to brand assessment and remediation programs, the views and voice of workers have not been adequately heard over the past 20 years. We believe that this, in addition to a lack of noticeable improvements in their lives, is why workers have little confidence in brand assessment programs as a vehicle for change. By allowing willing workers to prioritize the issues they share at the country-level as we do in the RSR platform, we can calibrate the actions undertaken in their name by other stakeholders (brands, factories and service providers).
Suppliers & Factories
No improvements on-the-ground can be accomplished without the understanding, support and buy-in from management and ownership. It’s very common for factories to receive multiple audits from different brands. While this is a source of inconvenience for factories, a deeper frustration comes from inconsistent expectations on how brands require issues to be remediated. Mosaic is building the consistency that ownership management needs to meet these expectations. The better factories perform, the fewer assessments they need to endure, as brands increasingly apply more attention to high-risk factories (e.g. those that have not remediated the issues they have). Furthermore, Mosaic RSR will be a practical and user-friendly resource for new or proactive factories, aiding them in better understanding brand priorities and setting up new policies and procedures that comply with local law.
Mosaic does this in two key ways. First, industry and brand standards as communicated to suppliers lack the inclusion of local legal standards. This is despite all such standards requiring compliance with local laws as a foundational expectation. By infusing these programs and standards with local legal expectations—the mandatory shared standard across all industries—Mosaic can greatly increase shared comprehension with up-to-date information. Second, Mosaic develops expert implementation and improvement recommendations for factory management applicable to each law. This enables the scaled improvement support the industry has been calling for.
Consumer Products Brands & Retailers
When peer brands approach shared factories in different ways they undermine each other, confuse factories and degrade their own prospects for success. Each factory cannot resolve the same issue three different ways within three different timelines. Mosaic builds the consistency needed for long-lasting remediation. The RSR platform will support compliance team efficiencies and increase confidence in singular OR collaborative remediation efforts between brands by providing a shared pool of informed legal interpretations and a consensus-driven response to non-conformities. With everyone working from the same informed and credible playbook we ensure consistent support.
Industry and Multi-Stakeholder Initiatives (MSI) and Certification Programs
While this diverse group boasts a variety of stakeholder and member interests and perspectives, they must all incorporate and respond to local law at least as a base-level objective. Achieving legal compliance is a clear shared and non-negotiable objective that all MSI’s and certification programs require. However, few of them maintain or manage detailed legal registers mapped to their standards. Providing their members or stakeholders the resources they need for success is vital. Mosaic also provides the only tool of its kind to confirm and manage quality and consistency around legal expectations used within their eco-systems.
Social Audit Firms and Certification Bodies
The burden of tracking and managing local laws almost exclusively has been the responsibility of social audit firms. As professional firms, their knowledge, management, and expertise in evaluating compliance with local laws is vital and why the Association of Professional Social Compliance Auditors (APSCA) expects all members to have a functioning system for tracking local laws and ensuring auditors are trained and informed on the laws. However, there exists a broad inconsistency between firms in how they manage, train, and cite legal non-conformities in social audit reports. The reason for this is that management of such laws is a substantial undertaking. And audit firms do not need to compete with one another on who knows the laws better.Mosaic provides a neutral and professional legal resource to social auditors (firms and independent auditors) that builds consistency and professionalism while saving operation costs.
Local Governments
While the legal and compliance enforcement landscape varies greatly between countries, Mosaic RSR supports and prioritizes efforts to comply with local laws. Therefore, it is in-line with local government objectives and an ally in supporting brand efforts to enforce local laws while highlighting where local laws are falling short.
In the context of current supply chain activities meant to improve labour conditions, Mosaic seeks to fill crucial gaps for stakeholders that will enhance the efficacy of the industry’s collective efforts.