Introduction
Theoretical Background
Modern Slavery Research
Framing Theory: The Interactive Perspective
Conceptual Framework: Dynamics of the Ethical Framing of Modern Slavery
Framing Functions and their Moral Justification
Framing Dynamics and Field Settlement
Methodology
Research Design
Data Collection
Data source | Description of data | Items |
---|---|---|
Interviews | Fifteen semi-structured interviews with: Sustainable Procurement Manager at a Facilities Management company; Sustainable Supply Chain Manager at Infrastructure group; General Counsel at a construction and property services company; Supply Chain Manager at property support business; Sustainability Manager Construction company; Head of Sustainability at Construction Materials Supplier; Sustainable Procurement Consultant, Business and Human Rights Consultant; Former representative at the IASC office; Policy and Public Affairs Manager of Professional Association Body; Programme lead at initiative to tackle modern slavery; NGO Expert; NGO representative; Lead at Anti-slavery initiative; Former Business journalist | 15 |
Naturalistic observations | Cross-checked field notes (in pages) of field-configuring events including: 2016 Modern Slavery and Ethical Labour in Construction Leadership Symposium; 2017 Modern Slavery and Ethical Labour in Construction Leadership Symposium; 2017 Action Program for Responsible and Ethical Sourcing Annual Conference: Risk & Responsibility: The Evolution of Supply Chain Data and Business Culture; 2018 Action Program for Responsible and Ethical Sourcing Annual Conference: If not now, then when? Responsible Sourcing and Procurement for Infrastructure Projects; 2018 Modern Slavery and Ethical Labour in Construction Leadership Symposium; 2019 Responsible and Ethical Leadership in Global Construction Supply Chains Conference | 60 |
Documentary evidence | Media articles published between 2014 and 2019. Sources included: The Times, The Guardian, The Independent, The Financial Times, The Sunday Herald, The National (Scotland), Lancashire Telegraph, The Yorkshire Post, The Journal Newcastle, The Irish, The Independent, Plymouth Herald, London Evening Standard, Building Magazine, Labour Research Magazine, Building, Construction News, Building Design, The Lawyer, Thompson Reuters News, Newstex Blog, ENP Newswires, CNN, Source Wire, Mondaq Business Briefing, Financial Wire | 106 |
Newsletters and reports from NGOs, professional bodies, industry associations, government authorities, the UK IASC, UK Home Office, management consultancies, accounting firms, and law firms | 100 |
Data Coding and Analysis
Stage 1: Organizing Data Temporally and Identifying Key Field Actors
Stage 2: Identifying Frames, their Functions and Moral Justifications
Stage 3: Identifying Field Realignments and Settlement
Research Context: The UK Construction Sector
Findings: Dynamics of Modern Slavery Framing
Human rights issue | Moral issue | Management issue | Social justice issue | Decent work issue | ||
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Field actors advocating the frame | UK politicians: Prime Minister, cabinet members, MPs, Home Office and foreign affairs officials | Representatives of professional association bodies, MSIs, think tanks, industry knowledge initiatives, and a cross-bench peer | Representatives of large businesses, lawyers, consultants, a few cabinet ministers, representatives from some NGOs, and industry knowledge initiatives | Campaigners, activists, Labor party leaders, NGOs representatives, watchdogs, government agencies, the IASC, selected consultancies, unions, and a cross-bench peer | Representatives of professional association bodies, some industry knowledge initiatives, some business “champions” | |
Punctuation function | Defines modern slavery a crime | Defines modern slavery as the result of an immoral professional decision | Defines modern slavery as a management issue | Rejects modern slavery framing and focuses on labor exploitation | Shifts attention to the issue of decent work | |
Elaboration function | ||||||
Diagnostic framing | Individual morality of traffickers | UK shortage of labor and desperate managers | Global supply chains | Combination of neoliberal economic and social system inducing the demand for cheap labor and decline in worker’s protection | The industry (business models, culture, and professionals) | |
Prognostic framing | Structures to prosecute and disrupt criminals | More severe civil and criminal penalties and prosecution of professionals | Fatalists: Skeptical about solutions | Optimists: Corporate-driven solutions compatible with MSA | No solutions outlined | Verticalization and decommodification of workers’ labor |
Vision of solutions | Long-term | Moderately urgent | No urgency | Long-term | Collaborative | |
Motivation function | Action mobilization: Calls to the UK to continue as leader in abolishing slavery | Consensus mobilization: Calls for leadership and reform in the industry | Absence of action mobilization | Action mobilization: Business case to tackle modern slavey | Action mobilization: Calls to disrupt the system, reconfigure relations and confront corporate power | Consensus mobilization: Calls for an introspective assessment of industry practices |
Moral justifications | Legacy of British abolitionism and UK’s moral sense of ‘goodness’ | Ethical case aligns with interest in sector’s performance and long-term growth | Amoralization of modern slavery Maximization of profits aligned with interest of modern slavery victims | Normative superiority on worker’s rights over efficiency gains | Respecting workers’ rights and ensuring decent work as moral priorities | |
Frame trajectory | Originates in ‘emergence’ period, shifts into hidden crime frame in ‘intensification’ period, and persists throughout ‘disenchantment’ period | Originates and dissipates in ‘emergence’ period | Originates in ‘intensification’ period and shifts into human moral obligation in ‘disenchantment’ period | Originates and dissipates in ‘intensification’ period | Originates and persists throughout ‘disenchantment’ period |
Period I: Emergence
Frame 1: Human Rights Issue
In summer 2014, while the Modern Slavery Bill was being discussed, including the proposed legislative options to address forced labor (LeBaron & Rühmkorf, 2017), frame proponents argued that the MSA would become model legislation, particularly in its requirements for transparency, and would show the “way forward to reduce the risk of modern slavery” (MP, 2014). At this stage, frame advocates did not frame reporting requirements as the solution, but misleadingly equated them to a public confirmation that supply chains are slave-free.“UK businesses are leading the way on work to create a human rights benchmark so companies around the country and international firms could be compared on their record.” (Representative of the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills, quoted by the Press Association, December 16, 2014)
These advocates saw the lower end of the labor supply chain as requiring regulation and the construction contractors, at the upper end, were implicitly free of blame for any infringement of human rights. Furthermore, proponents portray the corporation and its supply chains as being subjected to the “crime”.“Its new requirement [the MSA] for companies to publicly report on their supply chain's freedom from the employment of slave labour will ramp up the reputational damage and possibly the legal damage that such an offence would cause.” (MP, quoted in Building Magazine, December 12, 2014)
Frame 2: Moral Issue
While frame advocates ultimately placed the blame on the ethical decision-making of professionals, they also perceived that “the right thing to do” for a construction professional is tarnished by a pervasive corporate culture in the construction sector that tolerates unethical conduct. For example, advocates frequently compared modern slavery to the corruption that had tainted the industry’s reputation. Interestingly, this is the only frame in our study in which industry professionals were urged to choose “what is ethical” rather than “what is legal” (implying that modern slavery may occur under legal compliance). The following quote from the CEO of one of the associations for construction professionals illustrates this:“The sector's skills body, the Construction Industry Training Board, says that to cope with rising workloads almost 224,000 new recruits will be needed between 2015 and 2019. To address this, the industry has a simple set of choices: import from a ready supply of foreign talent, invest in training and development of UK citizens, or redesign the construction process.” (Chartered Institute of Building report, 2015)
To build the moral soundness of their “ethical case to react,” this group ranked the construction sector’s performance, productivity, and long-term growth as high-order principles. They feared that not acting ethically would damage the industry.“The industry has a moral duty not to collude in the exploitation of vulnerable people. Clients and principal contractors should take a responsible attitude to exploitation, even if they are not obliged to do so contractually. It’s being done in their name after all.” (Building Magazine, August 28, 2015)
Period II: Intensification
Frame 3: Management Issue
Occasionally, proponents used inverse framing of this argument: “if business leaders do not address the issue, profits will be damaged” (Sustainability consultant, 2017). Thus, optimists’ framing conveyed a “win–win” situation similar to that described by Monciardini et al. (2019, p.35) in which businesses’ interests (i.e., maximization of profits) align with those of modern slavery victims. These findings are thus in stark contrast to the “ethical case” championed by the moral issue frame advocates.“Businesses that identify general areas where the risk of adverse human rights impact is more significant will drive improvement and return on investment.” (Head of Advisory & CSR of a consultancy, field-configuring event, 2017)
Relatedly, they argued that modern slavery is correlated to right-to-work checks in the UK, which shifts attention from the moral issue of exploitation of people to firms’ reputational risk of employing illegal workers. Thus, similar to what was observed in the human rights issue frame, the “management issue” frame places moral worth on the corporation by centering on the impacts on the firm rather than on the impacts on human lives.“You should think and treat modern slavery as a risk in terms of H&S because bringing someone without skills or training to the site has dangerous consequences for the business.” (Human rights manager, field-configuring large construction company, 2016)
A minority of consultants championing these initiatives also acknowledged the limitations of these approaches: “Map your risks but do not wait to hear back from a letter you sent to your suppliers in which you asked them whether they have slaves or not… This is not a tick the box exercise” (Sustainable Procurement and Modern Slavery Senior Consultant, 2017).“We believe slavery has no place in the modern world and we take a zero-tolerance approach. We are committed to ensuring there is no slavery in any part of our business or supply chain, and we are implementing and enforcing effective systems and controls to enforce our approach, extending to our own employees and the thousands more employed in our supply chains, including subcontractors, suppliers, and labor agencies.” (Chief executive of a large family-owned construction and development company, quoted in the London Evening Standard, 24 November, 2017)
Frame 4: Social Justice Issue
Using rights-based arguments, they heavily opposed the criminal justice solutions proposed by the human rights issue frame and private initiatives such as CSR. They condemned these approaches for undermining a labor perspective and diverting attention from the core problem:“Their general feeling [victims]—and I totally get this—is that the establishment doesn’t really care about them.” (Migration policy and services coordinator of an NGO, quoted in the London Evening Standard, November 24, 2017)
Turning their attention to the human rights issue frame, the sponsors of the social justice frame extensively denounced the Conservative-led government’s approaches to tackling modern slavery. First, they criticized the focus on “catching and prosecuting the traffickers” instead of preventing modern slavery and protecting victims, particularly when inspecting and prosecuting agencies (e.g., the GLAA) were facing significant cuts.“This issue is mainly about employment relations, but you cannot start solving this issue with some people sitting in a room looking at a spreadsheet.” (Former IASC, field-configuring event, 2016)
Finally, frame proponents contended that the government was protecting the private sector by devising a weak law (the MSA), allowing businesses to get away with “saying too little” and not complying with obligations such as paying workers the minimum wage. They criticized the government’s assumption that cases of modern slavery are businesses’ “unintentional errors.”“The Home Office faces a conflict of interest between its responsibility to identify and protect victims of trafficking and its role in detaining and removing undocumented migrants. The prioritisation of these enforcement responsibilities leads potential victims of trafficking to be detained without careful assessment of their situations.” (human rights campaign group report, November 20, 2017)
Frame Shift 1: Recasting Modern Slavery from a Human Rights Issue to a Hidden Crime
Some continued to draw ahistorical comparisons to transatlantic slavery but the focus was increasingly on the difficulty of detecting the crime nowadays. Frame proponents continued to blame “traffickers” but also now accused them of “infiltrating legitimate businesses.” Similar to the amoralization strategy used by the advocates of the “management issue” frame, proponents continued to minimize businesses’ moral responsibility for the problem by portraying them as victims:“Human trafficking and exploitation prey on the most vulnerable in society. Often hidden in plain sight and in legitimate businesses, these offences are on the increase worldwide.” (Deputy leader of a UK political party, quoted in Daily Business, October 18, 2018)
Thus, this shift reinforced the widespread assumption of the absence of business wrongdoing, condemned by social justice frame proponents.“While it may be unlikely that large companies are directly employing trafficked people, contractors and subcontractors or the agencies supplying labour could find themselves targeted by unscrupulous gangmasters who may be offering a ready supply of labour at knocked down rates.” (HO fact sheet used at a field-configuring event, 2018)
“Our policy is designed to encourage more victims to come forward and ask for help. We welcome increases in the number of referrals as a sign that our efforts to shine a light on modern slavery are working.” (Nexis Lexis, October 10, 2019)
Period III: Disenchantment
Frame Shift 2: Management Issue Frame Infused with a “Human Moral Obligation”
A significant contributor to this shift was the demystification of the profile of “modern slavery victims.” Management frame proponents as well as other field actors assumed that victims were mainly immigrant and low-skilled workers who had been “trafficked.” As the NRM’s statistics were released, these proponents obtained a more nuanced picture of victim profiles, in which some of these workers had not been forced to move but had in fact exerted their agency and sought greater freedom in coming to the UK:“The really good thing to me is that we are starting to talk about victims, because this isn’t about statements, it’s not about pieces of paper and partnerships and logos and all those things that corporate PR people seem to get excited about. This is about going into supply chains, finding, fixing and needing to work with the right partners to take those victims out of the appalling situations they are in and getting back them into society.” (Head of sustainability of a large materials firm at a field-configuring event, 2018)
During this period, frame proponents intensified their recommendation that firms place victims at the center of their investigations, program developments, and remedial actions. Corporate actors considered “champions” (i.e., firms with longstanding sustainability reputations) inside and outside the field were featured as exemplary cases. For example, at one field-configuring event, the sustainability marketing director from a large materials firm emphasized that victims were central to the company’s modern slavery response, supported by covert intelligence-gathering in collaboration with an investigative NGO and appropriate remediation programs. Relatedly, examples of collaborations between businesses and charities providing employment for modern slavery victims were promoted. These examples were echoed by facilitators in training delivered to procurement, legal, CSR, and HR professionals. However, some advocates of the management issue frame rejected the suitability of a “victim-led” approach. In parallel, proponents of the social justice frame feared that this would exacerbate workers’ vulnerability, by putting them at risk of deportation when referred to authorities. Some NGOs used expressions such as “you are not expected to deal with suspected victims” and “that’s not the remit of corporations.”“Modern slavery victims are vulnerable parts of society, not necessarily unskilled workers, they can be engineers … and highly skilled foreign workers from overseas but also Europeans with a ‘right to work’.” (Representative of MSI to tackle modern slavery in construction, field-configuring event, 2018)
Frame Shift 3: Emergence of the Decent Work Issue Frame
Similar to the diagnosis within the social justice frame, this frame diagnosis implicitly placed a moral priority on respecting workers’ rights and ensuring decent working conditions. To mobilize action, proponents envisioned achieving these solutions through collaboration, both intra-organizational (avoiding silos inside firms) and inter-organizational (among peers and other field actors).“We need to increase the proportion of labor directly employed on projects and focus on what is tangible: improve living standards and conditions.” (Sustainability advisor, certification body, field-configuring event, 2019)