But the China National Textile and Apparel Council (CNTAC), formerly a ministry for the labor-intensive industry, is trying to give a clear-cut definition to the phrase.
For textile and apparel companies, CSR consists of 10 elements, including the management system, employment contracts, child labor, forced or compulsory labor, working hours, wages and welfare, discrimination, trade unions and collective bargaining, harassment and abuse, and health and safety concerns, according to Sun Ruizhe, a vice-president of the council in Beijing.
The 10 elements have been incorporated into CSC9000T China Social Compliance for the Textile and Apparel Industry which is the first, and thus far the only, industry-wide CSR guideline and framework in China, Sun says in an interview with China Business Weekly.
A trial basis
CNTAC released the principles and guidelines of CSC9000T in May 2005 and began to implement them on a trial basis in 10 selected enterprises beginning in March, 2006.
Sun says CSC9000T adopted a "plan-do-check-action" management pattern, which aims to enable enterprises to gradually bring CSR principles into their routine management and integrate them into their corporate cultures.
Implementation of the standards at the 10 pilot enterprises showed that most urgent improvements were needed in employment contracts, working hours, wages and welfare, and occupational health and safety, he says.
Sun says initial assessments, based on on-site visits and employee interviews, found that all of the 10 pilot companies failed to meet the legal requirements for working hours as prescribed in the Labor Law.
Employees of some factories worked 13 hours a day, and some worked an extra 4 to 5 hours in the evening, with the total working time per week reaching 83 to 90 hours. Some workers only had one day off in three months. Some factories also failed to pay overtime compensation to employees in accordance with the law, Sun says.
Female worker
In employee welfare, some enterprises do not provide paid annual leave and some changed the terms of paid leave. One enterprise stipulates that a female worker who has worked at the company for at least three years can have paid maternity leave of only 70 days.
In addition, some companies do not pay any salaries or compensation to employees in slack seasons or production stoppage periods, Sun says.
The 10 pilot enterprises were selected because they were believed to have a better performance record in CSR than others, Sun says, but he notes that initial assessments showed that quite a number of severe problems still exist in those enterprises, which sounds the alarm that corrections need to be implemented immediately.
Sun says his council held training programs for the 10 companies' managers and employees from July to October last year, then re-assessed them based on the requirements of CSC9000T last December.
"The re-assessment shows encouraging improvements in CSR performance," Sun says.
New pilot regions
After the CSR concept gets a firmer footing in the 10 pilot firms, CNTAC is going to select 10 export-oriented textile and apparel clusters as CSC9000T pilot regions this year, Sun says.
In the next two years, about 100 large-scale enterprises and 1,000 small- and medium-sized enterprises in these clusters will establish CSC9000T management systems, according to the work plan of CNTAC.
Moreover, the council will establish a data bank on the CSR performance of textile and apparel companies, which will serve as a reference for international brands and buyers when they select Chinese partners.
Reviewing the history of the CSR campaign, there is an interesting phenomenon that both internationally and domestically, the textile and apparel industry was the first to initiate social responsibility actions, Sun says.
In the early 1990s, after being exposed by the media for sweatshop production and as a result of the "Anti-Sweatshop Champaign," by US labor and human rights activists American jeans maker Levi-Strauss formulated the world's first code of conduct in 1991.
In 1995, a contractor for GAP in El Salvador sacked 350 workers because they started unions and protested against poor working conditions. Under pressure from various non-governmental organizations, GAP became the first retailer promising to monitor its overseas contractors.
Domestically, the CSR concept was also first introduced in the textile and apparel industry.
"It's not just coincidence that textile and apparel enterprises at home and abroad often take the lead in CSR initiatives," Sun says.
He explains that the textile and apparel industry is the most customer-oriented sector and most CSR concerns come from consumers.
As well, the worldwide transfer of production capacity started with labor-intensive industries and the textile and apparel industry was the first to feel the impact. Multinational corporations move production to developing countries where a cheap workforce is often accompanied by labor, environmental and corruption issues.
Problems remain
Sun says because China's textile industry is at the low end of the global textile supply chain, low profit margins have influenced CSR performance in the entire industry.
The narrow profit margin forces domestic enterprises to cut costs and their first choice is to cut wages and welfare of employees. Moreover, the quantity and delivery requirements of international brands and buyers may directly lead to extension of working hours.
"The establishment of a sound CSR environment in China's textile and apparel industry needs close cooperation with other partners in the international supply chain," Sun says.
"Our goal is to achieve a responsible supply chain that involves international buyers, brands and organizations, integrating strengths of all stakeholders on the supply chain to advocate CSC9000T," Sun says.
