The global electronics industry is a high-risk industry for modern slavery, the UK Modern Slavery Act (2015) seeks to address slavery, forced labour and human trafficking taking place today. On 29 October 2015, the transparency in supply chains provisions of the Act (section 54) came into force. The provisions require commercial and public interest organisations, including universities, to publish a statement setting out steps the organisation has taken to ensure that slavery and human trafficking is not taking place in any of its supply chains and in any part of its own business, often referred to as an “anti-slavery statement”.

According to the International Labour Organization around 21 million men, women and children around the world are in a form of slavery and forced labour, estimated to generate a profit of $150 billion every year. Human rights abuses, environmental degradation and horrific lack of dignity for workers are common in the electronics and technology, mining and minerals and shipping industries.

That Electronics Watch (EW) is a European-wide labour rights monitoring organization, conducting investigations of working conditions in factories around the globe. Their primary focus is the labour practices of factories that make electronics goods. Since its formation in 2013, 9 UK Universities have affiliated to Electronics Watch (including Swansea University), this means that all electronics suppliers to those University affiliates are now monitored for labour rights practices in their supply chains…while this is a great step forward, our University is also a major purchaser of electronics.

The affiliation of universities to EW has enabled workers to have a number of major successes in defending their rights. EW is the only monitoring organisation that is credible with workers and their organisations, and is explicitly dedicated to monitoring university and public authority supply chains. The more universities which affiliate, the greater the collective weight of purchasers in dealing with labour rights abuses in the electronics sector.

The Students’ Union should:

1. Pressure the University to monitor its supply chains.
2. Mandate the President to lobby the University to affiliate to EW.
3. Mandate the President to request student representation on all of the University's purchasing committees.
4. Mandate student representatives who sit on purchasing committees to push affiliation to EW.
5. Mandate all student representatives who sit on the purchasing committees to push for more ethical and more sustainable electronics from University procurement managers.