I am often on Facebook for personal and business purposes. Once or twice a day on my News Feed page, I get a request from a friend to hit “Like” if I am against spouse abuse, animal abuse, child abuse, drunk driving, cancer, various other illness, nasty neighbors, garbage, pollution, and so on. Obviously, I am against these things, but I really get an attitude when there is an implied message that if I don’t take the requested action I am a horrible person. If I don’t “like” that I am against these things, then I must be “for” these things, and thereby I must be burned at the stake.
So it is with the new California Transparency in Supply Chains Act. California employers who are retailers or manufacturers in the state now must go through a series of steps to be in compliance with this new state law, effective January 1, 2012. First, the company must verify and evaluate the risks of human trafficking and slavery in their supply chain. Suppliers must be audited in unannounced audits. Suppliers must provide certification that the materials produced comply with human rights laws, included the human rights policies of the International Labour Organization of the UN. The company must have written accountability standards and procedures. All employees who are involved in procurement of materials must be trained in these standards and on human trafficking and slavery laws. AND the company’s compliance must be disclosed in a prominent place on their websites, showing consumers that the company intends to comply with the anti-slavery philosophy.
I am as much against slavery as I am against any other exploitation and mistreatment of persons. But once again, the grain of a good idea has now grown into a giant beanstalk of compliance. I am reminded of a cartoon I recently saw where the boss was telling his executives that he wanted them to be flexible, spontaneous, and imaginative - - while all the while he is handing them 10-inch binders filled with ISO 9000 compliance regulations. No matter how well-meaning the legislation, proving compliance is going to be time-consuming, costing businesses more time away from being profitable.
My frustration over this is that required compliance is the creation of more paper and documentation. Much of this documentation will be prepared by employees in honest, hard-working companies who are proving that their products are “slavery-free.” Ok, there will be a few Kathy Lee Gifford's out there who will not realize that their shirts were sown by six-year olds on some remote island and who will change their supply chain. But the real abusers – those who have known for years that their garments were created in illegal sweat shops – will not change their ways. They’ll simply take the time to prepare fake documents to show they are in compliance.
The Governor of California announced during Mothers’ Day weekend that there had been a “little” error on the prediction of their state deficit. It went from $9 billion to over $16 billion. California – save your industries a lot of money. Create a Facebook page, and just require all the retailers and manufacturers to hit “Like” if they are against slavery. That will have the same effect and cost everyone a lot less to comply.
