Global Experience – Global Vision
Formed in 2000 by a group of practitioners in international industrial relations and labour rights, Just Solutions works to promote the transformation of social relations in production bringing dignity and respect for workers in global supply chains.
Just Solutions consultants have extensive experience as rights activists, trainers and academics; as social auditors; as corporate CSR officers and as trade union officers at international and/or national level. Through the Just Solutions Network they are able to share this unique blend of knowledge and know-how to combine performance with justice in the global workplace.
Because of its strong base in the organised labour community and in the social sector, Just Solutions has particular expertise in mediating contacts with local worker organisations, social and institutional stakeholders.
Based in the UK, Just Solutions has associates in every continent with particularly strong networks and representation across the Asian region. Because of its loose network structure and its constantly expanding breadth of contacts, Just Solutions can rapidly construct and capacitate teams with the correct mix of skills to tackle complex issues in most countries.
We have achieved positive results working with global brands, with inter-governmental agencies, with non-governmental organisations, with trade unions and with local supply factories. We are particularly experienced in designing and delivering multi-stakeholder development projects with a national, regional and global reach.
Just Solutions understands the interplay of power in production that underlies all attempts to invoke fundamental change at work. Our core consultants have decades of experience operating at the highest levels of international governance while rooted in the realities of daily industrial and business practice.
Just Solutions’ founder, Vic Thorpe, was a former General Secretary of one of the founding organisations of the IndustriALL Global Union. Vic was responsible for devising and negotiating the first Global Framework Agreement (GFA) between a multinationally operating company (Statoil) and its global workforce. He crafted the first global multi-stakeholder sector agreement between the world’s chlorine industry manufacturers, their counterpart trade unions and global environmental campaigners. Vic has coordinated and led negotiations in the International Labour Organisation for several important conventions – including the Occupational Safety and Health Convention (155), Safety in the Use of Chemicals at Work Convention (170); the Prevention of Major Industrial Accidents (174); and the Safety and Health in Mines Convention (176). He was also the Chair of the Joint Initiative on Corporate Accountability and Workers’ Rights (JO-IN) in Turkey between global brands, their local suppliers, and local and international trade unions, facilitated by leading international multi-stakeholder institutions.
Just Solutions’ Director of Projects, Stirling Smith, was for several years Chief Technical Officer for the ILO in South Asia – a region where he maintains a special interest. Stirling is also a globally acknowledged expert in the training of adult learners through the use of highly participative learning techniques. This methodology underlies all Just Solutions extensive training activities. Stirling is supported by a wide-flung network of trainers who have been specifically invited and further developed by Just Solutions to deliver change-oriented training to culturally diverse and variably literate adult learners.
A recent addition to the Just Solutions team has been Jyrki Raina, the first and immediate past Secretary General of the IndustriALL Global Union. Jyrki vastly expanded the number of Multinational Framework Agreements (MFAs) with a wide range of global companies and was the architect of the tri-partite Bangladesh Accord on Fire and Building Safety, following the tragedy of the Rana Plaza factory collapse with the death of over 1,000 people. This was the first legally binding, independent multi-stakeholder agreement.
Each of our core specialists brings a wealth of experience and practical expertise to inform our comprehensive solutions. (See: Our Team)