What is a company code of conduct? Companies sometimes develop their own codes of conduct. This is partly as a result of increased awareness within the industry. A few of these corporate initiatives are genuine efforts to improve conditions. But many are only public relations tools intended to deflect consumer inquiries about workplace conditions and corporate social policies and are inadequate for the following reasons. First, the standards they contain are weak: some only address child labour, or do not address the problem of extremely long working weeks, or do not ensure the fundamental rights of free association and collective bargaining. As for wages, most only provide for the legal minimum wage which is often not enough (the CCC campaigns for codes that guarantee a living wage - also see What is a Living Wage?)Second, many codes are too vague, so that it is difficult to know what their subcontractors' concrete obligations are. Third, there is no genuine commitment to implement the standards, or to monitor and independently verify that they are applied. In-house codes often come with corporate-controlled systems of monitoring and verification.