The news of the recent jailing of a man in a modern slavery case involving the making of greeting cards for an un-named company (see PG Buzz), had the potential to seriously damage our industry’s reputation.
As this is the first time that greeting cards have been implicated in this way, it is vitally important that the whole industry’s high ethical credentials are safeguarded.
We have teamed up with HR benefit provider HR4:UK to provide a suggested statement (see below), guidance and further template statements, which are now in the GCA Members’ Library, just login to download.
Legal Requirements
While it is not a legal requirement for small businesses (or any business with under £36 million turnover) to have an anti-slavery statement on their website, we do encourage all our members to do this. We also suggest that you check with your suppliers that they have policies, procedures and statements in place.
For businesses with a turnover of over £36 million, it is mandatory by law to have systems, policies and procedures in place and publish an anti-slavery and human trafficking statement for each financial year. More details are in the guidance notes.
Many GCA members are also members of Sedex (Suppliers Ethical Data Exchange), an affordable ethical data sharing membership organisation.
Suggested Statement
HR:4UK has provided a statement wording which has been emailed to members for use on their websites