An imported audit

People Like Them

I hope this satisfies those social accountability fellows!" said the loom owner Tariq humorously, as he used a wet rag to paint his dirty white walls brick red.

"Every time they've inspected my carpet looms, they've complained the white walls look dirty. But what can I do? The weavers spit paan juice wherever they like!" So he finally decided to paint his loom shed red, so that the paan stains wouldn't show.

"The hygiene aspect doesn't bother the weavers, I don't understand why our buyers, thousands of kilometres away, are so upset!" said he. Tariq added that in another social audit commissioned by another importer, he had been asked to construct a toilet in the loom shed.

"Can you imagine?" he demanded aggressively, "my house has no toilet, and they want me to make one for my weavers! Aren't the fields good enough for the weavers when they're good enough for my wife and daughters?"

Tariq is not the only carpet manufacturer who grumbles about social audits. But he and other manufacturer-exporters have no option but to comply with the strict social accountability norms now followed by many Western importers.

"Buyers are getting more and more concerned about the conditions in which their orders are being executed. So now they want to have a say in the way we treat our employees," said Tariq, "their work conditions, health and salaries "" these are all issues which can make or break export orders in the industry today!"

And since each buyer does separate audits, the work areas of many loom owners get inspected as often as once in two months. So much so that some large manufacturing companies have actually begun to conduct such audits internally, so that the external audits don't throw up any surprises.

Carpet manufacturers often say that these issues make little difference to the quality of weavers' lives. "When they've lived in dirty houses all their lives, how would it matter to them if their workplace is freshly painted or not?" they ask.

One manufacturer told me that a social audit revealed that he did not keep his first aid kit (full of medicines also recommended by the importer) in full view of the weavers. "I kept it locked up, but the agent said how would the weavers take it out if they needed it in a hurry?" said he.

So he displayed it prominently. To his consternation, the weavers helped themselves to most of its contents. "And in the next inspection, the first aid box was found to be nearly empty!" he recounted.

Another manufacturer said that the weavers unions were unhappy about a social directive that weavers should not work more than four hours overtime in a day.

"But weavers themselves come to us, pleading to be allowed to work extra hours, since they depend on the double wages they receive for overtime to supplement their incomes," said he. He said that most weavers would rather weave their eyes off for double wages, rather than sit at home for free.

"Don't you think weavers have benefited in any way from the toilets, medicine kits, and clean surroundings?" I asked Tariq. "Well," said he grudgingly, "now that the toilet's there, they all use it.

I guess it saves them a walk to the fields in all types of weather!" He also had to build another one at home, and his family is delighted with the indescribable luxury of a personal toilet.

"But I just wish that our buyers, who're rich enough to think of such things, also contributed towards the social development of weavers, instead of forcing us to bear the entire burden of their social audits!" he said.