Fifty-nine were found not to provide sufficient safety or protective gear to workers or monitor whether workers were using the material correctly. Samsung's sustainability report also found some suppliers lacked emergency exits or fire and smoke alarm systems. A total 40 did not conduct evacuation drills or excluded night-shift employees from these, and 50 did not make sufficient efforts to establish emergency response programmes.
Three suppliers exceeded legal environmental limits for workers, such as dust and noise limits. On other environmental targets, 33 suppliers failed to monitor properly sewage and waste at the site, and 35 failed to control air pollutants. In addition, a "majority" did not comply with Chinese laws on overtime hours, a third did not meet requirements for employee social insurance, and a third had administrative errors regarding contracts covering issues such as working conditions and temporary workers.
Through its supplier support programme, Samsung has provided training and legal materials to help the suppliers improve their performance and mandated that they meet the terms of the code of conduct. The company did not say if it had halted work with any of the suppliers in violation or what kind of deadlines were given for meeting the code.
Samsung offers suppliers a self-assessment tool to ensure compliance and said it's also rolling out this year its own internal checklist to monitor compliance through the support programme. The checklist will also be expanded to other southeast Asia countries where it works. It also provides a hotline for suppliers and workers to report human rights, safety or other violations.
In addition to the third-party audit, Samsung's own staff conducted on-site surveys at 200 suppliers in China in 2013. According to the results, supplier areas for improvement included labor and human rights (57 percent), health and safety (34 percent) and environment (9 percent), in order of severity. Over 4,000 tasks were identified to improve compliance.
