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Article

15 Jan 2007

Author:
Jonathan Birchall, Financial Times

An onus on retailers to keep hands clean

For Britain's Tesco supermarket chain, it was a public relations disaster. Last October, secret footage aired on the UK's Channel Four news bulletin showed workers who were clearly underage making its own-label clothes in factories in Bangladesh...The case illustrated the limits of systems established over the past decade to monitor conditions in sectors such as clothing, footwear and toys...Now Tesco has now joined Wal-Mart, Carrefour and Metro - the world's four largest supermarket groups - in endorsing a new global initiative to encourage the development of a unified approach to promoting good working conditions in the supply chain from computers to bananas...With little political support for regulation, two related views are emerging among companies and non-governmental organisations. The first entails a fundamental shift in the way factories are run. Management and workers would be educated both about their legal rights and the standards buyers expect. Disney and McDonald's, for instance, have been working with NGOs and local groups on a project at 10 factories in southern China that produces clothing, shoes and toys...Gap has introduced an "integrated vendor score card" that ranks suppliers in five tiers, combining overall factory conditions with factors such as speed and innovation...[T]he second strand in current thinking [relates to]...how purchasing and design decisions made by a retailer or brand at its home office can contribute to abuses such as unpaid or excessive overtime. [also refers to Marks & Spencer]