Mae Sot, Thailand – When Shwe Lin learned that a audit firm visited the clothing plant where she worked in the Thai border city of Mae Sot to inspect the working conditions, she had trouble feeling full of hope.
The factory has prepared workers’ workers and exchanged repeated issues and answers with the audit company, said that the migrant worker Burmese, who asked for an alias for his safety. She told Radio Free Asia that workers had been forced to lie on factory policies on sickness, vacation and overtime. They are also in a hurry to say that their employer pays their legal documents such as their identity certificate to stay in Thailand, a work permit and a health certificate when workers really pay for that themselves – an expense of around 5,500 Thai baht (US $ 160).
“Most information [given to the auditing company] Here is incorrect, ”said Shwe Lin, an older and frank clothing worker who has been in Mae Sot for over 20 years and who has been faithful to his colleagues.
In many regions of Southeast Asia, where Western brands use third-party suppliers to produce clothing and other products, they count on private companies of “social verification” to provide assessments on the question of whether work practices are ethical and socially responsible. This is partly a response to public pressure on brands to respect human rights and environmental standards in their supply chain.
The exact number of these listeners operating in Thailand is not clear, but the Securities and Exchange Commission of Thailand in enumerating 30.
Some labor defenders argue, however, that audits can be selfish and ignore the difficult conditions facing workers.
“It is essentially the industry itself,” said Dave Welsh, director of labor rights of Myanmar, Solidarity Center.
“Social audit companies do not work on behalf of unions, they work on behalf of brands and companies covering situations which, according to my experience, are obviously illegal,” he told RFA.
Conflicts of interest
A 2022 report by Human Rights Watch revealed that social audits, while being more and more popular, were “tried conflicts of interest, escape and other problems that make it an inadequate tool”.
Many workers in clothing factories in Thailand are migrants from neighboring countries. In 2021, migrants represented around 1.2 million clothing workers and the number has probably increased significantly in the past four years. The influx of migrants in Thailand has only growth. According to the International Organization for Migration, 1.3 million Burma entered the country in 2024, fleeing violent attacks on military conscription, forced and the increase in unemployment in Myanmar.
The FRG previously reported on the factories hiring undocumented workers, paying them illegally low wages, keeping indebted workers and providing very inadequate accommodation or installations. Activists say that it is the kind of abusive practices that should be revealed during audits.
Intertek Testing Services Thailand, an audit firm, was faced with criticisms of campaign and plea groups such as work based in the United Kingdom behind the label, which focuses on the clothing industry, and says that the company “would not have identified serious problems” in VK Garments Factory in Mae Sot until 2020, when the workers brought the factory in progress.
More than 130 former employees won their files against VK clothing for unpaid overtime and unscathed compensation, but say that the amount granted to them was inadequate. They therefore call on their file against the factory before the Supreme Court of Thailand.
The workers allege that they have endured weeks of work for almost 100 hours, a dangerous accommodation where the child of an employee was raped and was forced to buy his own equipment, like bulbs, sewing in their stations after nightfall.
According to an associate lawyer for workers, who asked for anonymity to avoid potential reprisals of the accused parties, an audit led by Intertek was used as evidence in a judicial case of 2020 to support the refusal of VK Garments of any reprehensible act.
The Intertek testing office in Thailand did not respond to a request for RFA comments. Calls to his British office remained unanswered.
Other companies have been faced with similar controversy. The giant of sportswear Nike was accused both by investors and human rights groups who are also hiding behind his audits.
In 2020, more than 3,300 Hong Seng Knitting Factory workers in Thailand in Bangkok, who provided Nike, were forced to sign documents indicating that they would voluntarily renounce legal wages, according to the consortium of workers of the labor rights group. The workers would have faced reprisals if they did not do so. In 2024, workers collectively owed more than US $ 900,000, according to the group.
Nike quoted a report by the audit company Elevate to safeguard its position of reprehensible non-act, but did not publish the report to the public, said consortium in a survey published in 2024.
Nike did not respond to RFA attempts to request comments, and LRQA, who acquired Elevate in 2022.
In a 2021 report, the Center for Commercial Resources and Human Rights, a non-profit organization based in the United Kingdom, cited dozens of audits through Vietnam, Pakistan and Malaysia which have not detected security risks, forced labor and other violations.
The failures are routine
But workers like Shwe Lin and Arkar Kyaw, who have been working in Mae Sot clothing factories for over three years, tell FRI that failures like this are routine.
None of the two has ever been selected by management to speak with an auditor despite the outspokenness of violations. They say they have seen listeners prevented from interviewing unprecedented workers.
Aruna Kashyap, Associate Director of Business Responsibility at Human Rights Watch, believes that stricter laws of reasonable diligence can be a way to suppress business responsibility in their supply chains.
“If governments introduce laws that regulate the way companies should lead to a reasonable diligence and how the whole system is examined, then some of these problems will start to surface,” Kashyap told RFA.
The European Union, for example, introduced a directive last year which would oblige companies with more than 1,000 employees and more than 450 million euros in global income to identify and mitigate “undesirable and environmental rights” of themselves or their partners, which may include suppliers. This can also force them to obtain contractual insurance from partners, such as factories in other parts of the world, in order to guarantee that human rights are protected in work practices.
European companies are among the main customers of Thailand’s clothing factories, collaborating alongside American and Asian brands to stock up on the region’s clothing and accessories.
“I hope this level of control will change what brands and suppliers do not only, but also the audit industry,” said Kashyap.
Published by Tajun Kang, Malcolm Foster and Mat Pennington.