Femnet e.V.

Pressemeldungen - Unternehmensverantwortung & Lieferkettengesetz

12 November 2019 The failure of TÜV and Co: Social audits protect companies and leave workers in the lurch

Social audits are designed to monitor and ensure compliance with human rights at work. However, as a control tool, this approach has failed. This is documented in the report ‘FIG LEAF FOR FASHION - How social auditing protects brands and fails workers’ of the Clean Clothes Campaign: The multi-billion-dollar, private-sector certification and audit industry systematically protects the reputation and profits of the contracting companies instead of the rights of workers.

In the comprehensive analysis of various commercial audit organisations, a dependency between contractor and client is identified. Well-known initiatives for the review of social standards, such as Social Accountability International (SAI), Worldwide Responsible Accredited Production (WRAP), Fair Labour Association (FLA) and amfori Business Social Compliance Initiative (BSCI), as well as the largest audit companies, Bureau Veritas, TÜV Rheinland, UL, RINA and ELEVATE, are shown by case studies from the last decade to show a blatant negligence in their controls.

Some of the best-known examples include the factory fire of Ali Enterprises in 2012, the devastating collapse of the Rana Plaza building in 2013 and the boiler explosion in 2017 at the Multifabs factory: Thousands of workers were injured or killed, although each of these factories was declared safe by several leading audit firms, including TÜV Rheinland, Bureau Veritas and RINA. In the assessment, they followed the standard, methodology and guidelines of leading compliance initiatives such as amfori BSCI and SAI.

Disasters like these are predictable and avoidable. They thus testify to the systemic shortcomings of the social audits. Nevertheless, the industry continues to work on the same principle with impunity. So far, there have been few consequences for the companies and initiatives involved. In fact, the industry's sales and profits are growing - along with the number of supposedly audited factories. The industry has managed to keep the many shortcomings under wraps, because there is a lack of transparency. The results of checks are almost always only accessible to the client. Even the workers whose rights, life and health are at stake remain hidden.

"Twenty years of social audits have not improved working conditions. Brand companies cannot be trusted to self-regulate. Therefore, we need binding rules and standards for audits as well as reporting obligations with the threat of sanctions. Only in this way can we ensure that responsibility is taken seriously, corporate due diligence is observed and the lives of workers are protected", explains Dr Gisela Burckhardt, CEO of FEMNET.

The report shows how structural deficiencies can be addressed. Greater transparency and effective involvement of trade unions and workers in audits would be two important elements.

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• Katharina Edinger, FEMNET e.V.
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• Fabienne Winkler, Development Policy Network Saxony e.V. (ENS)
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