More Myanmar garment companies are starting to realise that the quality of garments alone is not the only priority in the fast changing global market but also the working conditions and environment of the factories where the products were produced. A compliance academy has been conducted with 10 local garment factories in September by SMART Myanmar where it has been clearly demonstrated that socially responsible business practices are a major necessity and requirement for those who would like to do business with European customers. In addition, SMART Myanmar trained 10 young engineers on a Train the Trainer type of training (ToT) on these important compliance issues.
SMART Myanmar selected 3 factories from among the 10 local factories who participated in previous compliance academy on set-criteria to provide on-site consultancy visits. These on-site consultancy visits were conducted by SMART Myanmar togehter with International Compliance Expert, Nancy Feng of Systain Shanghai in November 2015. The aim of the compliance academy combined with factory consultancies is to help improve factory policies and social compliance according to both local laws and ILO standards. Simone Lehmann, Project Director of SMART Myanmar says: “The focus is to enpower the local factories to come up with their own policies and procedures regarding working conditions because only in that case the working conditions and environmental standards can be improved and sustained in the long run.”
Myanmar Synergy, one of the 3 factories to have been provided with on-site consultancy, recently formed a Social Compliance team with 3 staff members to handle relevant issues and to target their approach with an aim to expand such practices. Dr. Ricky Maung, the Managing Director of Myanmar Synergy, stated that he is hoping to get the support from SMART Myanmar on improvement of their OHS system & procedures to be able to access to EU markets very soon.
All 3 of the selected factories have a strong will to implement the necessary policies and procedures. They are already doing changes to improve their working condition. Maple Trading Company, for instance, has installed a new water-cooling system in the ironing department to control the reasonable temperature for workers to work in.
Daw Shwe Zin, HR Manager from Shwe Sakar garment factory said, "This 2nd mission on Social Compliance Expert has been very useful for us because we genuinely like to improve the working conditions, and it will also be helpful to accommodate new EU buyers". Shwe Sakar also has some practices that are already quite advanced and they also have a strong Industrial Engineering team for proper documentation on production data which is very helpful for bonus systems. The bonus system allows Shwe Sakar to introduce a performance based additional payment which they will pay to the workers in additon to the wages they currently pay.
The SMART Myanmar compliance on-site consultancy provides assessments on social compliance through factory tours and detailed document checks. Factories were advised on OHS, human resources practices and payment systems and further supported to develop corrective action plans, including practical and useful remedies & methods. The 3rd visit of the International Compliance Expert of Systain will be in early January 2015 and will focus on follow-up of the progress on the corrective action plan (CAP).
