What are the modern slavery obligations on a construction contract?

Modern slavery obligations reach construction because construction buys a large volume of manufactured goods from long international supply chains.

The obligation on most projects is about process rather than certainty: having a way of assessing the risk, acting on what it finds, and telling the client.

Where the risk sits in construction

Not usually in the site workforce on a NSW government project, which is covered by workers compensation, award conditions and [site induction and screening](/answers/workforce-screening-and-site-inductions).

It sits in the products.

**Imported manufactured goods,** including bricks, tiles, stone, glass, carpet, timber products, solar panels and electronics.

**Products with long or opaque supply chains,** where the supplier is a distributor with no visibility past their own importer.

**Low margin labour-intensive goods,** which is where the economic pressure concentrates.

**Labour hire further down the chain,** particularly where a subcontractor uses a labour provider rather than direct employees.

What a reasonable process looks like

**Risk assessment by category,** not supplier by supplier. Identify the product categories on this project that carry known risk, and concentrate the effort there.

**Supplier questions on the risk categories,** asking where the product is manufactured and what the supplier knows about its own chain. A supplier who cannot answer is itself a finding.

**Contract terms that flow down,** so subcontractors and suppliers carry the same obligation they were given. A head contractor that accepts the obligation and does not pass it on has no mechanism at all.

**A route for raising something,** so that a person who sees a problem has somewhere to take it that is not the party they would be reporting.

**Records,** because the obligation is to take reasonable steps, and reasonable steps that were not documented cannot be demonstrated.

What it changes in procurement

Occasionally a specified product. More often the supplier, or the evidence required before an order is placed.

The practical version is that the risk categories on a project are known at the start, the questions are asked when the packages are priced rather than after the material is on site, and substitution is considered while there is still time for it.

Substitution after delivery is a variation, a delay and a cost.

Reporting

Entities above the revenue threshold have statutory reporting obligations. Below it, the obligation arrives through the contract, and what the client requires is set out there.

Either way the client is entitled to be told if a risk is identified on their project, and told when it is identified rather than at completion.

Why it belongs with quality and environment

It is the same discipline as the rest of the compliance work on government contracts: a process, applied to the actual project, with records that exist because the work generated them.

A contractor already running proper [subcontractor engagement](/answers/how-subcontractors-are-engaged-and-managed) and material conformance records has most of the evidence already.