How to check the social conditions of a supplier?

This is a really good question, and one thing is for sure: it is not enough to ask for a social audit report, nor is it enough to think that one should only check social conditions with exotic suppliers.

Why are social audit reports not always worth that much?

There are actually several reasons for this.

First of all, one can say: If one is to find some form of forced labor, one does not find them by looking at the stack of employment contracts. Nor is it enough to control the number of employees and the number of employment contracts, because forced laboreres do not officially exist. f there are now a large number of employees in a company, it can be infinitely difficult to see if some of these should be forced laborores, because you can not see the difference, and you can not ask all employees in the company to stand still, until one has spoken them all. In addition: Audits are always carried out by agreement, so the company has the opportunity to ensure that some employees do not show up for work on the day or days, and as a rule they can simultaneously deduct these people in salary for the days when they is forced not to work.

But at least as important is the fact that a credible social audit requires that the auditor has knowledge of the products and processes that exist at the company. If, for example, the auditor does not know anything about the production of metal frames and legs for furniture, he probably does not know, for example, that these must be varnished or surface-treated in some way. And therefore, of course, he is not looking for the department that is in charge of it at the company. And it is conceivable that it was precisely here that one could find all the migrant workers, because it can be dangerous work that requires expensive protective equipment or other safety equipment.

If you continue along that path, it also goes without saying that the auditor is not necessarily aware of how many parts belong to a finished product. herefore, the auditor can not see through which parts are not made at the company in question, but are bought from others, and the auditor can not see at all whether, for example, this is the dangerous productions, products and processes that have been outsourced to subcontractors. This is a fairly common working method, which also thrives best in countries such as Denmark.

We have thus seen many examples of the companies that European companies trade with being pure assembly companies, where no production takes place. It is typically not something that is stated in the social audit report, but you can read it between the lines by looking at what machines and what equipment the company is stated to have seen in relation to what it actually sells or has in stock.

We have also seen countless examples of a social auditor definitely not knowing or understanding the risks associated with a given production or process and therefore not knowing what security measures to look for. On the other hand, he has noted in his standard sheet that there was no fire extinguisher in a room where no production activity took place.

ECOHouse has just prepared a guide on how to work with validation of documentation for social conditions. You can order it by sending an email to: magnus@ecohouse.dk