Building Responsibly Launches New Worker Welfare Principles

Yesterday in London, Building Responsibly launched their new Worker Welfare Principles to promote the rights and welfare of workers across the engineering and construction industry. Since 2016, Humanity United has supported Building Responsibly to become the engineering and construction industry’s leading voice on worker rights.

We applaud Building Responsibly for this first step of establishing a global baseline for the engineering and construction industry. With these principles in hand, we eagerly anticipate and expect to see changes that companies will make to their internal policies and their external engagements to ensure that workers’ rights are respected and upheld, all the way through their supply chains.

Through the 10 Principles, companies advance a global worker welfare standard in which:

1. Workers are treated with dignity, respect, and fairness
2. Workers are free from forced, trafficked, and child labor
3. Working conditions are safe and healthy
4. Living conditions are safe, clean, and habitable
5. Recruitment practices are ethical, legal, voluntary, and free from discrimination
6. Access to documentation and mobility is unrestricted
7. Freedom to change employment is respected
8. Wage and benefit agreements are respected
9. Worker representation is respected
10. Grievance mechanisms are readily available

We look forward to working closely with the member companies of Building Responsibly and the industry at large to bring these principles to life and to see change in workers’ lives.

Click here to learn more about Building Responsibly and the new Worker Welfare Principles.