by Siow Li Sen

(SINGAPORE) Singapore's electronics factories will soon come under scrutiny for their ethical practices, including for sexual harassment incidents, which have been hitherto not been under the spotlight.

It's not that electronics companies here are known to be hotbeds of abusive practices - on the contrary, Singapore has a good reputation in this regard, said Rejesh Chhabara, consulting director of CSR Works, a corporate social responsibility and business consulting firm.

But the industry has never had a spotlight shone on its working environment and many in the business are unaware that the global electronics industry has adopted a code of conduct which will have zero tolerance for certain types of abuse such as child or forced labour, physical and verbal abuse and sexual harassment.

Household names such as IBM, Apple and Hewlett-Packard have agreed to the Electronic Industry Code of Conduct (EICC) and next year is expected to be the global rollout for compliance.

Ronnie Wong, president of the Association of Electronics Industry of Singapore, told BT he had not heard of the EICC.

While it is unlikely Singapore factories will employ children, there may be cases of sexual harassment because of the high levels of foreign female workers in these workplaces.

Most supply chain factories are staffed with lowly paid women workers, but in countries like Taiwan and Singapore, they are also mainly foreign, making them more vulnerable, because supervisors tend to be male, according to observers.

Any company found to have incidents of sexual harassment could face a crisis, as there is zero tolerance for this kind of abuse under the EICC, said Mr Chhabara.

'The electronics industry has initiated a broad corporate social responsibility programme with an industry-wide code of conduct,' he noted. 'Electronics manufacturers around the world will have to comply with it in order to retain their customers. Sexual harassment at the work place, which is only one aspect of the code, can potentially jeopardise the entire business of an electronics company,' he added.

The goal of the EICC is to improve conditions in the electronics supply chain specifically across five areas - labour, health and safety, environmental, management system and ethics.

Factories will be audited to ensure compliance with the code.

So far this year, Mr Chhabara has audited two factories in Singapore as part of a pilot phase.

He said the two passed the audit which he had expected, though he did not ask specifically about sexual harassment incidents.

'I was not looking for it ... but with the Aware report, in the next audit, whether me or someone else, we will be extra cautious,' he noted.

A recent study by advocacy group Aware on workplace sexual harassment in Singapore showed that while not completely unknown, the practice remains for the most part a hidden problem.

A survey of 500 people showed that more than half, or 54.4 per cent, experienced some form of sexual harassment at the workplace.

Corporate social responsibility auditors typically work with NGOs on ethical issues.

Major electronics brands, like those in the garment industry, suffer when they are hit by reports that workers involved in the production of their goods have been abused. Sales fall as consumers boycott their goods. It sometimes take years for their reputations to recover.

The impetus for the EICC came in 2006 when Apple's reputation was hit following reports alleging poor working and living conditions at one of its iPod final assembly suppliers in China.

This article was first published in The Business Times on July 19, 2008.