Tesco child labour allegations demonstrate flawed auditing
Wednesday, 11 October 2006 10:44
An investigation by Channel 4 news has found children as young as 12 producing clothes for Tesco's Florence & Fred range in Bangladesh. The allegations are further evidence of two key flaws in the efforts made by clothing retailers like Tesco to prevent workers' rights abuses: poor auditing and harmful purchasing practices.
Poor auditing
In our recent Let's Clean Up Fashion report, LBL and our partners have been calling on brands to stop relying on bulk auditing and to engage instead with local stakeholders like trade unions and labour rights groups, who are in touch with workers on the ground. This has to include a pro-active approahc to freedom of association in countries like Bangaldesh where few workers are unionised.
A recent report from the Clean Clothes Campaign - our European network - presents systematic evidence that weak social auditing cannot pick up many working conditions issues.
Harmful purchasing practices
Tesco says it was not aware that two of the four factories featured were producing its clothes. Often work is illegally subcontracted to production sites with poorer working conditions when the buyer's demands on quick lead times and low prices are impossible to meet in the legitimate factory.
LBL's recent report, "Who Pays for Cheap Clothes? ", featured in the Channel 4 report, explores this issue further.
The Channel 4 story
Watch the film at channel4.com/news
Secretly filmed footage captures Tesco's own label clothes being manufactured by workers, who look clearly under 15, in four factories owned by suppliers to Britain's biggest retailer.
During the course of the 4 month investigation, it also emerged that Tesco did not know that two of the factories Channel 4 News visited were manufacturing its clothes. As a result, Tesco had never ethically audited them.
Both Bangladeshi suppliers have denied the existence of any child workers within their factories, stating the ages of all workers are independently verified.
There is no suggestion that Tesco ever knew about child workers at any of the factories visited and in a statement to Channel 4 News Tesco said it:
"abhors the use of child labour and is at the forefront of industry efforts to stamp it out through systematic investigations of its suppliers"
It added: "on receipt of these allegations Tesco immediately made unannounced visits to the suppliers " but "found no evidence of any use of child labour."
Tesco is a founder member of the Ethical Trading Initiative which bans child labour. The investigation, however, does raise questions about Tesco's ability to actually enforce the ethical standards it claims to insist upon.
