Last Updated: 2011.02.28
to Japanese page
Monitoring workplace conditions at partner factories
Based on the Code of Conduct for Production Partners, UNIQLO monitors the working environment of major sewing factories and grades the factories from A to E in accordance with our own criteria.
In instances of particularly serious or alarming offenses such as child labor, the factory is given the grade of E and our contract with the factory is immediately reconsidered. We offer direction on making improvements and consulting to a factory with a grade of C or D and conduct followup monitoring to check progress. If progress has not been made, the contract with the factory is reviewed.
Monitoring results
In fiscal FY 2010 the Fast Retailing Group monitored 174 partner factories and discovered E-grade incidents: two in which work hour reports had been fabricated and two of suspected child labor. When incidents as serious as these are identified, the Fast Retailing Group sends CSR Department members on fact-finding missions and reviews the contractof the partner company. We work together with partner factories to implement measures to prevent the recurrence of such grave infractions. The results of such investigations are made public, while other issues, including matters such as working hours and wages, are retroactively resolved to get to the root of problems.
Actual cases of grade E in FY 2010 (September 2009 - August 2010)
Falsified reporting
Regular inspections in November 2009 revealed that one partner factory had been issuing pay statements that did not correlate with working hour records. When CSR Department members later visited the plant to verify these allegations, a factory representative acknowledged discrepancies between submitted labor documents and actual work records detailing when workers started and finished their shifts. The Fast Retailing Group, which viewed this as an extremely serious infraction, asked to see accurate time sheets and demanded that the factory compensate any affected workers for unpaid hours. The factory in question was given an E grade and its volume of business was reduced.
Child labor
In July 2010 regular inspections revealed that one partner factory had engaged in child labor. The relatives of the youth worked at the same plant and the minor had only been employed on a temporary, day-to-day basis during a holiday period. However, the Fast Retailing Group requires its production partners to formally verify the age of every employee, regardless of whether or not an individual is a temporary worker. Fast Retailing called on the factory in question to rigorously enforce this requirement. Due to the extremely serious nature of this infraction, Fast Retailing gave the facility an E grade, requested that the factory sternly reprimand the relatives of the child in question, and reduced the factory's volume of business.
