KARACHI – Social compliance requirements, for foreign buyers, has become a little difficult for manufacturers as a majority of textile industries depend on contract workers for their operations in South Asia including Pakistan, said National Projects Director Gen-Prom UNDP Maham Nasira. Addressing the seminar organised by Pakistan Readymade Garments Technical Training Institute (PRGTTI), on social compliance for foreign buyers, she said that a large number of textile units like sewing, finishing and packing are employing contract workers, while factory owners pay contractors instead of workers.
She said that the implementation of social compliance would mean that exporters are at par with their arch rivals in the industry in countries including China, India, Turkey, Thailand, Taiwan, South Korea and Malaysia. She maintained that since around more than 80 percent of the workers in a textile factory are hired on contract basis, managing records, payroll and timings of the contract labour are upheaval tasks for factories to meet social compliance requirements of international buyers.
She said that the PRGTTI-CDC has organised two sessions of seminar on social compliance in order to discuss and identify issues of contract labour in achieving social compliance requirements and address related issues.
The session was a huge success -accompanied by an overwhelming response from the industry. HR managers/executives, factory representatives, compliance managers and DGM HR of leading export organizations attended the session, with their teams including Liberty Mills, The Towellers, Yunus Textile, Shahbaz Group, Rajby Industries, JNM Clothing, Prime Safety, Mustaqim Dyeing & Printing, Midas safety and International Textiles. Most of them believed that the session was informative especially for the compliance people and found worthy tips to implement at their facilities.
Some commented they found good knowledge regarding the labour laws and recommended that the training session was very interesting and useful. It should be held frequently to get the latest knowledge in this export-oriented industry, she further said Requirements of social compliance include existing prevailing practices of industry to handle contract labour, social compliance requirement for contract labor, payroll mechanism, time, attendance and record management to meet social compliance requirement and real understanding of contract labor management.
