Global Union Federation says that 'Time to Look at Life beyond Codes of Conduct'.
Speaking at a European Union-sponsored conference on responsible sourcing and improving global supply chain management in Brussels today, Neil Kearney, General Secretary of the International Textile, Garment and Leather Workers' Federation (ITGLWF) said that the first step towards 'life beyond codes of conduct' was recognising that code implementation through social auditing is not sustainable in the long term.
Mr. Kearney slammed the social auditing profession for being poorly trained, inadequately prepared for individual audits, rushing through factories while working by rote from check lists, and because they live on a different plain from workers, being incapable of conducting meaningful employee interviews.
“As a consequence”, says Mr. Kearney , “ten years of corporate code of conduct application had brought little change to workplaces, with conditions often worse than they were a decade ago.”
“But”, he said, “some corporations at least have learned valuable lessons from their experience. In the space of a decade, they have moved from hiding behind the argument that workplace conditions in the supply chain had nothing to do with them, to performing an active policing role, to recognising that auditing and monitoring and verification through social auditors is not sustainable in the longer term and what is needed is a mature system of industrial relationsbased on social dialogue. What a difference ten years makes!
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