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When told that it is checked that workers should get at least the minimum wage set by the government, which they all do, she said that if they think this wage is enough they should all try to live on this amount for a month and decide if it is OK.” |
| Social audits: turning a blind eye | | Print | |
Page 3 of 4 Top down: how the brands see it For the majority of companies, best practice appears to means an annual audit of each supplier. Companies that do this include H&M , Gap , Levi Strauss & Co and Asda-WalMart . The latter's website tells us that this amounted to more than 13,600 audits in 2005. Not all companies accept that this is necessary, however. Some, such as New Look , Tesco and John Lewis focus regular audits on "high risk" or "core" suppliers. Others are even less rigorous. In some cases the information supplied suggests that there is no process to check working conditions, or only a very cursory one. Oasis told us that, "we cannot visit all the factories for each order placed and as a result are reliant on the supplier adhering." Turning back to companies with regular audits, at the better end, audit programmes will involve unannounced audits. We asked specifically about this, but few companies told us whether or not audits were announced, or gave proportions. One exception was H&M , where 33% of audits in Asia were unannounced. Some of the more developed responses told us what audits entailed, and placed a strong emphasis on worker interviews. For example at Levis Strauss & Co : "Each facility is formally assessed once a year. The formal assessment consists of: interviews with the facility management; a review of personnel, wage and working hour records; and a physical walk-through and inspection of health and safety conditions in the factory and dormitories if they exist. A critical part of each T[erms] O[f] E[ngagement] assessment is the process of gathering information from workers, a random, confidential worker interview process." Several companies, such as New Look , were 'sceptical' of the ability of 'bulk auditing' to "diagnose problems and tackle the root causes of non-compliances." Some of these explained, in vague terms, that local stakeholders were consulted at some stage of the process, although no company indicated that this was systematic and rigorous. Tesco , for example, requires auditing companies to, "use local auditors who have involved local labour groups (NGOs, Trade Unions and Multi-stakeholder organisations) in the pre audit data and information gathering process." Pentland said that, "Where there are unions, worker representative groups and health and safety committees we include them in the process and at the final meeting." Real multi-stakeholder oversight of audits is confined at present to a few companies and a few pilot projects. Next told us about the ETI pilot project in Sri Lanka, where, "our audit methodology will be coupled with a 'social add on' ie; NGO conducting extensive worker interviews and linking into the process as a whole." Finally, Gap has begun to examine how a more systematic involvement of trade unions in its approach to workers' rights can be realised: "ITGLWF [the global federation of unions representing garment workers] also will be facilitating introductions between local union affiliates and members of our monitoring team based in Southeast Asia, South Asia and Turkey." |
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| Last Updated ( Monday, 18 September 2006 ) | ||||||
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