I hope the Stitch Wear memo report (below) will be better structured and I look forward to the results. If you have any comments or tips, please leave me a message.
MEMO REPORT
To: Board of directors Stitch Wear
From: Peter Jesse Sijbrandij - Head of Public Relations Stitch Wear
Date: 20-10-2011
Subject: Corporate Responsibility Program
Introduction
On 20 October, the heads of PR, Production, Marketing & Sales and Purchasing discussed how to set up a Corporate Responsibility Program (CRP). Recently, Stitch Wear has been accused of using the labor of children to produce low-cost products. We need to improve the working conditions in the factories of Stitch Wear’s suppliers urgently to strengthen our public image. We have agreed on the following measures to install the CRP.
Manufacturing
Stitch Wear should observe manufacturer’s practices more closely. To ensure working standards in factories fit in to Stitch Wear’s view of doing responsible business, there should be tight collaboration between Stitch Wear and its suppliers. Therefore, we would recommend the creation of an inspection team to carry out spot-checks, preferably on a quarterly basis. In addition, this team can provide training to educate factory managers about the importance of healthy working conditions and how to achieve this.
Educational and health programs
According to us, we should dismiss all under aged workers and set up educational and health programs for them to demonstrate our social responsibility. However, setting up these programs could turn out to be a very costly measure. Therefore, we recommend to establish educational programs for employees between 12 and 16 years old. Children beneath the age of 14 will not be allowed to work in the factories anymore and will be invited to join the educational program. In this way we will create more educated, thus more valuable, future employees. Furthermore, we will provide free health care for employees under the age of 18. Finally, we should set up social events to show our involvement with the local community. These events could include bimonthly sports events.
Sustainable supply chain
In order to restore our company’s reputation, we should partner with the Ethical Trading Initiative (ETI). The ETI screens suppliers against a code of practice and has a positive public image. Moreover, partnering with them would give us expert knowledge on how to make our supply chain socially responsible.
New image
Our advice is to invite the press to one of our production facilities. In our opinion a name change in order to erase the allegations of sweatshop conditions would be a very costly operation. Therefore, we advise to invite members of the press to witness how strong our commitment is to ethical work practices.
CRP team
Finally, we suggest creating a CRP team to monitor progress and to react to changes regarding social and environmental issues. This would ensure that significant improvements are being made. Our advice is to appoint an employee of PR to become Corporate Responsibility Officer and to install members of the departments of production, marketing and purchasing in this team.
Conclusion and recommendations
Stitch Wear should supervise suppliers better and train them on how to become more socially responsible. Besides that, educational programs should be set up for young employees. To improve our reputation, we should partner with ETI and invite the press to witness our commitment to social responsibility. Finally, a CRP team should be set up to achieve all these important measures. We would recommend to take a close look at the commercial viability of these plans as it includes costly arrangements.
We look forward to your reaction and hope to put these measures into action as soon as possible.
Peter Jesse Sijbrandij, Head of Public Relations – Stitch Wear
(Group 19 – s2198746)
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