• The ‘Social and Labor Convergence Programme (SLCP),’ an initiative to have a standard-neutral, converged assessment framework for the textile and clothing industry, will be launched in India shortly.

Important features:

• The SLCP is not a code of conduct or compliance programme.
• The converged assessment framework is a tool developed by the SLCP, which provides a data set with no value judgment or scoring.
• It is, however, compatible with existing audit systems and codes of conduct. This means that the same data set can be used by a wide-range of stakeholders. It eliminates the need for repetitive audits to be carried out on the same facility.
• The initiative is led by world’s leading manufacturers, brands, retailers, industry groups, non-governmental organisations and service providers.
• The objective of the initiative Its aim is to improve the working conditions in textile units by allowing resources that were previously designated for compliance audits to be redirected towards the improvement of social and labour conditions.
• This is a voluntary adoption by the textile and clothing makers.

Significance:

• For the exporting units, it will reduce the number of social audits and facilitate measuring of employment practices, thus improving working conditions and employee relations. It also redeploys resources towards improvement actions and fosters collaboration between supply chain partners.