Labour Provider Auditing Solutions

Intertek’s Labour Provider Auditing Solutions monitor your supply chain for underhanded recruitment practices.

According to the Walk Free Foundation, 40.3 million people live in modern slavery. Many of these workers are recruited into abusive workplaces unknowingly through corrupt Labour Recruitment Agencies.

Legitimate recruitment agencies, intermediaries, and labour outsourcing providers play a crucial role in the large-scale migration of workers who support the global supply chain. Unfortunately, due to the low-skill nature of migrant work in many sectors, these workers are vulnerable to abuse and subject to unethical recruitment practices. These mistreatments can include excessive recruitment fees and deception about the nature and conditions of work, which often lead to human trafficking and slavery.

Labour providers providing workers to the facilities producing goods for brands and retailers are a high-risk partner. These provider companies are not properly reviewed in the scope of traditional social compliance audits today. As a result, this leaves a gap in a brand’s overall risk management strategy.

Intertek’s Labour Provider Audit enables organisations to monitor their supply chain for underhanded labour recruitment practices by combining the principles of trusted industry standards and certification schemes like International Recruitment Integrity System (IRIS) Code, Clearview, and the Consumer Goods Forum – Social Sustainability Priority Industry Principles on Forced Labour. The Labour Provider Audit was designed to provide a baseline assessment against poor business practices and provide an opportunity for continuous improvement with the development of policies and procedures to support systemic good practices across the company’s business partners.

Intertek addresses the following audit criteria during a labor provider audit:

• Legal and System Frameworks
• Management of the Deployment Site
• Use of Labor Intermediaries
• Clear and Transparent Recruitment Practices
• Recruitment Fees and Debt Bondage
• Employment Freely Chosen
• Child Labor
• Freedom of Association and Grievance Mechanisms
• Discrimination and Harassment
• Employees Legally Entitled to Work