Companies must address the commercial terms that create human and labour rights risks. Procurement practices – rates, delivery windows, tender criteria and payment terms – are where road transport risk originates. HREDD that examines suppliers without examining the buyer's own pricing and scheduling will find symptoms and miss root causes that client companies and transport buyers bear primary, legally binding liability for. Rates must fully cover legal wages, all non-driving working hours, operational overheads, social contributions, rest periods and safe operation.
Responsibility must extend the full depth of the supply chain. Obligations do not stop at the first-tier logistics provider. They must reach every driver moving goods for the company, however many tiers below and whatever their employment classification. Contract terms must cascade, and companies must be able to say exactly who is driving for them.
HREDD must also begin at the point of recruitment. Recruitment fees, and debt-bondage and deception at the point of hiring, are where forced labour in road transport begins, and sit outside the scope of most compliance systems. Effective due diligence must run from recruitment through to the end of employment. Stakeholder engagement must be with workers' own organisations. Drivers isolated in cabs, crossing jurisdictions and dependent on securing the next load will not report problems to an auditor. Companies must therefore adopt clear and enforceable commitments to neutrality and non-retaliation on trade union activity, and ensure ITF-affiliated unions can reach workers in their supply chains.
Where harm is found – for example withheld wages, recruitment debt, lack of or denied facilities – companies must act to remedy it, in cooperation with workers and their representatives.