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Social audits as they are currently carried out often fail to deliver as a tool for checking working conditions in facilities producing garments and sports shoes, research released by the Clean Clothes Campaign (CCC) demonstrates.
Researchers, drawing upon the input of 670 workers from 40 factories, found that social auditing falls short especially in relation to detecting violations of freedom of association, excessive and forced overtime and abusive treatment and discrimination of workers.
"The researchers found that workers and their organizations are often marginalized in the social audit process; they don't participate and the reality in the workplace is missed," said Ineke Zeldenrust of the Clean Clothes Campaign.
Workers reported being interviewed in front of management and therefore too frightened to reveal workplaces problems, being bypassed by the auditors completely, or other irregularities in the interview process.
The study, based on research carried out in Bangladesh, China, Kenya, India, Indonesia, Morocco, Pakistan and Romania, found that social audits are often short, superficial, and sloppy, and are often conducted by global firms whose staff is generally unskilled and inexperienced. Audits often were not followed up with sufficient remediation. The audit industry is also lacking in transparency, which hinders serious discussion about its policy, practices and possible improvements to its methods, the CCC reports.
"The auditors are always in a hurry; they sometimes only use their eyes and never engage the workers….They must talk to us if they truly want to know our problems," said a worker at a factory in Kenya producing for U.S. retail giant Wal-Mart.
"Whenever social auditors come to this factory, we are given holiday," said one worker in India producing for such major European companies as KarstadtQuelle, Otto Versand, and Littlewoods.
The CCC report found that the non-specialist retail sector (supermarkets, discount and department stores) in particular are developing less stringent models to implement labour codes of conduct, which are overly dependent on weak social auditing.
The CCC instead calls for a system that places workers at the centre of social auditing processes and a more comprehensive approach to implementing and verifying labour codes of conduct.
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