labor - Fake factory records - FT



Faking payrolls and time sheets has become more sophisticated in China and is hard to track, writes the Financial Times in an article on how Chinese factories are hiding its labor costs behind a smoke curtain of deception, making it hard to enforce corporate social responsibility.

Factory managers' forgery of payroll documents and time cards is increasingly sophisticated, according to auditors and western buyers who work with Chinese factories. Some estimate that more than half of the factories surveyed in social compliance audits have falsified at least some of their records.

Getting figures right in labor issues is still hard. Just had some frustrating months in trying to get our own benchmark for the labor market, the wage indicator, in place, despite initial good prospects. The project, that is already running in eight countries and should be online in twenty by then end of the year, can become a leading source of information on wages and labor conditions in a country. But getting initial funding in place, for a project that would be sustainable within three years, proves to be very hard. Getting commercial funding for what is basically a social project is much harder than for a semiconductor plant or more traditional approaches. Getting money from social funds proves to be hard because a common partner in other countries, an internationally recognized trade union, does not exist in China. Troublesome, since this is really my pet-project.
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