March 15, 2023 – A recent ASPI blog highlighted a New York Times article covering exploited migrant children labor in the United States. While child labor laws are intended to protect underage children from working in hazardous jobs, there are many large organizations named in the NYT piece that are employing underage migrant children.
Essentially, this report is intended to identify these organizations while alerting other business owners to be aware of where their products come from. The blog discusses some key points to consider when writing contracts for business relationships with other companies:
- National and Regional GPOs: Enforce your contracts by calling out suppliers who are in breach of your terms and conditions. Serve notice on suppliers, ask for remediation plans and follow-up on the corrective actions taken.
- Health Systems and IDNs: You work daily to improve the health of your communities, and care deeply about the well-being of the patients you see. If you care about “population health” and the social determinants of health, then why support suppliers who abuse those principles? Should you support brands that ignore your own–and their own–basic ethics and principles?
- Supply Chain Leaders: Ensure your purchasing department writes child labor and other basic principles into your own purchase contracts—and enforce those provisions.