This page shows a merchandiser, a factory manager, or a buyer's own staff the specific labour standards Delta Garments must meet to pass its social compliance audit, building on lesson 10.1.1's explanation of what the audit checks overall. At work, this means being able to name each standard the auditor actually checks, rather than treating "labour compliance" as one vague requirement. This lesson mainly teaches an information flow: what each standard means and why it is checked, before lesson 10.1.3 shows how a specific problem becomes a recorded finding.
This matters to Karim, the production manager who runs Delta Garments' floor day to day; to Mona, the merchandiser who must be able to answer Sara's questions about specific standards, not only "the audit"; and to Sara, the buyer at Northline Apparel, who needs Order A's factory to meet every standard, not most of them. Without this skill, a factory manager treats one serious gap, such as blocked worker representation, as no more important than a minor documentation gap, because neither has been named as its own distinct standard.
You need: lesson 10.1.1 (what a social compliance audit checks and why buyers require it).
By the end of this lesson you can:
Not covered here: what a social compliance audit checks overall (lesson 10.1.1), how to read and classify an audit finding (lesson 10.1.3), how to build a corrective action plan (lesson 10.1.4), and a complete tracker across several audits (lesson 10.1.5).
| Term | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Freedom of association | A worker's right to join, form, or take part in a trade union or worker organisation without being punished, discouraged or blocked by their employer. |
| Forced labour | Work performed under threat, coercion, or without a worker's free and informed consent, for example through withheld identity documents, unpayable recruitment debt, or an inability to leave the job freely. |
| Child labour | Work performed by a person below the legal minimum working age for that type of work in the country concerned, or work that is hazardous to a child's health, safety or development regardless of age. |
| Minimum wage | The lowest wage a worker may legally be paid for their work, set by the country where the factory operates and checked against actual pay records during a social compliance audit. |
| Core labour standard | One of the small set of labour rights an audit checks in every factory regardless of country, commonly covering child labour, forced labour, freedom of association, working hours, wages, health and safety, and discrimination. |
A social compliance audit checks a factory against a small, recurring set of core labour standards: no child labour, no forced labour, freedom of association, limits on working hours, payment of at least the legal minimum wage and correct overtime pay, health and safety at work, and no discrimination. These standards are checked in the same way in every factory an auditor visits, whatever country it is in, though the exact legal numbers behind some of them, such as a maximum working week or a minimum wage figure, are set by that country's own law rather than by one figure used worldwide.
| What can differ | The shapes you will meet | Why it matters |
|---|---|---|
| Freedom of association, where unions are restricted by law | In a country where independent trade unions face legal restriction, an auditor instead checks for a functioning worker representation committee or grievance mechanism through which workers can raise concerns without fear of punishment. | Confirms that freedom of association is checked by its underlying purpose — workers can raise concerns safely — not only by the presence of a trade union in its most familiar form. |
| Working hours, where the legal limit differs by country | Delta Garments' own country sets its own maximum working week and overtime rules; a factory in a different country checked against a different buyer's code of conduct may see a different legal number, though the standard "working hours must be limited and recorded" applies in both. | Explains why this lesson states the general standard rather than one universal number: the specific limit is jurisdiction-dependent, and an auditor checks the factory against the law that actually applies to it. |
| Wages, where a factory pays above the legal minimum | Some factories pay above the legal minimum wage as a matter of policy or to retain skilled operators; the audit still checks that the legal minimum is met as a floor, not that the higher rate is itself a requirement. | Shows that meeting the minimum wage is the pass/fail line the audit checks; paying more is a factory's own choice, not a separate standard. |
| A domestic, Make to Stock order, such as Cedar & Co.'s own supply chain | The same core labour standards apply to a factory supplying a domestic brand's Make to Stock production, even though no export shipment or letter of credit is involved. | Confirms the core labour standards do not depend on export or domestic business, or on MTO, MTS or a hybrid order; every factory's own workers are protected the same way regardless of who the goods are sold to. |
The independent third-party social auditor engaged by Northline Apparel checks Delta Garments against Northline Apparel's own written code of conduct, which is itself aligned with widely used industry frameworks for social auditing rather than invented separately by the buyer. Karim, the production manager, is asked to show the auditor Delta Garments' working-hours records, payroll records, and the factory's own worker representation committee, since these are the direct evidence behind three of the seven core labour standards.
The worked numberThis lesson's worked output is not a cost figure; it is matching each core labour standard to the actual evidence an auditor checks at Delta Garments.
A common mistake is reporting that a factory "is compliant" or "is not compliant" as a single verdict, without stating which of the seven core labour standards was actually checked and how. A factory can meet six standards fully and still fail the audit on the seventh, for example a genuinely accurate payroll and safe floor alongside a worker representation committee that has not met in over a year. Collapsing seven distinct standards into one vague word hides exactly which standard needs to be corrected, and by whom.
A social compliance audit checks a small, fixed set of things every time: that no child works there, that no one is forced to work against their will, that workers can raise concerns without being punished for it, that working hours are limited and recorded honestly, that pay meets at least the legal minimum, that the workplace is safe, and that no one is treated unfairly because of who they are. The exact numbers behind some of these, like how many hours count as too many, depend on the country the factory is in, not on one number used everywhere. Each of these seven things is checked on its own, with its own evidence, so a factory that gets most of them right still has not passed if even one is missing.
The third-party social auditor is midway through Delta Garments' audit and asks Karim, the production manager, for a general update on the factory's labour conditions.
The document the auditor checks after Karim's statement:
Does Karim's statement that Delta Garments "has no labour problems" match the auditor's own checklist? Decide before opening the answer.
No. The checklist itself shows an unresolved gap on freedom of association and an incomplete check on working hours, so a blanket "no labour problems" statement does not match the factory's own recorded evidence.
First fact. The worker representation committee's own attendance record shows no meeting held in fourteen months, which the checklist treats as an open item on freedom of association, not a confirmed pass.
Second fact. Two of the eight weeks of working-hours records have not yet been cross-checked against payroll, so working hours cannot yet be marked confirmed either.
Karim should tell the auditor which standards are confirmed and which are still open, rather than offering one general reassurance that does not match the checklist's own two open items. A vague "no problems" answer, if repeated in the auditor's report, risks the factory being recorded as fully compliant when its own records do not yet support that.
Framed qualitatively, since this lesson is about naming standards correctly rather than a costing exercise: a genuine gap on freedom of association, if missed because it was hidden behind a vague "no labour problems" statement, risks the audit recording a pass the factory's own evidence does not support. If this is discovered later, for example at a verification audit, Northline Apparel risks having relied on an inaccurate report when it confirmed Order A, and Delta Garments risks a worse finding at its next audit than if the gap had been named and addressed the first time.
Open the Compliance audit tracker. For Delta Garments' audit, the "Labour area" column records which one of the seven core labour standards a row belongs to, so a gap on freedom of association is never combined with, or hidden behind, a confirmed pass on a different standard such as health and safety. Download link: `templates/T10-C01-compliance-audit-tracker.xlsx`.
1. What are the core labour standards a social compliance audit typically checks?
2. In the worked scenario, why is Karim's statement that Delta Garments 'has no labour problems' not accurate?
3. A different factory pays all workers above the legal minimum wage for its country, but its identity-document policy requires new hires to surrender their national ID cards to the factory office until their contract ends. What should this be recorded as?
| EN | AR | FR | TR | Meaning |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Freedom of association | حرية تكوين الجمعيات | Liberté d'association | Örgütlenme özgürlüğü | A worker's right to join, form, or take part in a trade union or worker organisation without being punished, discouraged or blocked by their employer. |
| Forced labour | العمل القسري | Travail forcé | Zorla çalıştırma | Work performed under threat, coercion, or without a worker's free and informed consent, for example through withheld identity documents, unpayable recruitment debt, or an inability to leave the job freely. |
| Child labour | عمالة الأطفال | Travail des enfants | Çocuk işçiliği | Work performed by a person below the legal minimum working age for that type of work in the country concerned, or work that is hazardous to a child's health, safety or development regardless of age. |
| Minimum wage | الحد الأدنى للأجور | Salaire minimum | Asgari ücret | The lowest wage a worker may legally be paid for their work, set by the country where the factory operates and checked against actual pay records during a social compliance audit. |
| Core labour standard | معيار العمل الأساسي | Norme de travail fondamentale | Temel çalışma standardı | One of the small set of labour rights an audit checks in every factory regardless of country, commonly covering child labour, forced labour, freedom of association, working hours, wages, health and safety, and discrimination. |
You now know the core labour standards a social compliance audit checks. The next lesson shows how an auditor turns an observed problem into a recorded, classified non-conformance. Back to the course map