Portugal

The Portuguese cluster promotes constant dialogue with Inditex's suppliers in this country in an effort to strengthen its supply chain and improve the labour conditions of the employees by these suppliers. Thus, in 2012, Inditex continued to collaborate with its strategic partners in this country, –employers’ organisations, trade unions, civil society (universities)– in a wide variety of projects.

As far as trade union relations are concerned, Inditex held meetings to prepare for the implementation of the union participation protocol that in order to strengthen the Framework Agreement Inditex maintains with IndustriALL, which will be more extensively developed in 2013.

In addtion, in 2012 Inditex collaborated with the Catholic University of Portugal (Oporto) to identify and train social auditors.

As regards the compliance programme, the following activities were carried out during the year:

• 28 pre-assessment visits to factories
• 35 competence visits to factories directed at ensuring compliance with the Code of Conduct for Manufacturers and Suppliers
• Seven auditors were trained in the Inditex’s social audit methodology

More information about the clusters can be found in the Sustainability Balance Sheet.