ABSTRACT
Compliance with codes of labour practice has increasingly become a condition of global supply for producers supplying some large retailers and food companies. Codes, which arose in response to civil society campaigns against retailers and brands, have become an important mechanism for staving off ‘risk’ to the brand image as a result of adverse publicity for poor supply chain labour conditions. They set employment standards that suppliers must meet if they wish to supply certain companies. Verifying compliance with company codes has spawned a growth industry of organizations that carry out social audits of suppliers against different buying company codes of labour practice. These normally involve a ‘snapshot’ visit by a compliance officer employed by the retailer or buyer, or an external professional auditor, to a farm or producer to monitor compliance against the buyer’s code. However, increasingly, criticism is being raised of snapshot audits. They tend to focus on formal management compliance rather than helping to support genuine improvement in workers’ rights. They tend to pick up ‘visible’ issues, such as health and safety, but often fail to pick up issues that are not easily verified by company records or physical inspection, such as freedom of association or discrimination. They are often insensitive to issues of concern to women workers, or insecure workers such as temporary, migrant and contract labour. This is important given the large number of such workers increasingly employed in the global food system (see Chapter 5).
