Fair Trade Clothing Brands & Human Rights ... the Ethical Consumer Movement

[Eterna]

^ I don't know if he is sincerely trying to promote labor rights or just hurt H&M, who happens to be his competitor.


Spanish artist Yolanda Domínguez shocked shoppers on Madrid's emblematic Gran Via on Tuesday by staging a re-enactment of last month's Bangladesh factory disaster to raise awareness about the working conditions in the Asian country's textile industry.
the local.es


youtube/Yolanda Domínguez

 

[lucy92]

^ I don't know if he is sincerely trying to promote labor rights or just hurt H&M, who happens to be his competitor.

he pays his factory workers $16+ an hour. H&M's factory workers get paid around $38 A MONTH.

in addition, items from bangladesh that go into the US do not have to pay a duty.

 

[YoninahAliza]

So I've just come into a little sum of money and I was thinking about what to do with it when I thought I ought to put my money where my mouth is and make a donation to a organization that works in some capacity with improving conditions for garment workers. Only trouble is, I'm not sure of which organization would be most reputable. I know about the Clean Clothes Campaign (which sounds pretty great) but was looking for some other charities so I can throughly do my research before donating. Thought I would ask my fellow tFSers for suggestions since Google searches are coming up with some iffy suggestions. Thanks dears!

 

[fashionista-ta]

^ Suggest checking Charity Navigator for ratings on organizations you're considering. I know of a number of charities I like, but none in this area specifically. You could also put some of your money toward a fair trade purchase of some sort

http://fairandsquareimports.com/
​

 

[fashionista-ta]

This is from the editor's page of the current issue of Yes! magazine by Christa Hillstrom, who also edits humangoods.net ... the theme of the issue is The human cost of stuff.

Last April, I met a 24-year-old Bangladeshi seamstress who broke her arm and leg jumping from an upper-story factory window to escape a fire. Sumi Abedin worked at Tazreen Fashions in Dhaka, sewing 4000 seams a day for major Western clothing brands. Management kept the exits locked to prevent theft; when the building caught fire in Nov 2012, workers were trapped inside. As smoke filled the building, Abedin and a coworker leaped from the window. "I thought if I saved my body from burning, my parents would be able to identify it," Abedin said. She survived the fall; her companion did not. That day, 112 workers died.
I asked Abedin, who was in the United States campaigning for safety improvements in major brands' supply chains, how it felt to see Americans up close, buying $50 garments made in Bangladesh when that country's minimum wage is $38/month.

She smiled and slightly shook her head. She had no words. [Editorial comment: No words she felt she could say.]
...
We have more access to cheap stuff than ever, but much of it has been drained of meaning. We causually toss what we're tired of and rarely know who made it. Factories have almost disappeared from our communities; we no longer buy stuff made by our friends and neighbors. When our things come from all over the world--mined in the Congo, picked in Uzbekistan, woven in India--we're less likely to see and understand the consequences of our consumption....

 

[YoninahAliza]

^Wow, what a chilling story. And certainly one that no one should ever have to experience. I mean, the quote in bold lettering pretty much says it all, showing just how bad the garment industry is. I love Yes! magazine, they always have great and insightful articles and are at the forefront of change. Thanks for sharing.

Also, I was on the People Tree website earlier (looking for a few items for fall) when I saw that Zandra Rhodes collaborated with the company on a capsule collection, which is pretty neat. Always glad to see a 'big' name in fashion take time to learn about ethically made clothing and supporting such causes.

 

[lucy92]

wow, this is pretty bad.

Old Navy Garments Made by 12 Year Olds

WASHINGTON -- Faced with footage of Bangladeshi girls as young as 12 working on jeans with "Old Navy" labels, Old Navy's parent company, Gap Inc., says it believes one of its contractors may have improperly sold its product to a wholesaler without its knowledge.
The disturbing footage of child labor was part of an in-depth investigative report by Al Jazeera on working conditions in Bangladesh's garment industry. The 25-minute "Fault Lines" segment focused primarily on the contracting practices of Walmart, whose clothing turned up in the deadly Tazreen factory fire that claimed at least 117 lives in 2012.
But the program's most provocative scene involved clothes marked "Old Navy."
Al Jazeera reporter Anjali Kamat gained entry to a Bangladesh "finishing house" by pretending to be an interested buyer. Finishing houses are where workers put the final touches on garments, affixing buttons and tags and the like. While inside the facility, Al Jazeera's crew captured footage of a 12-year-old girl putting elastic into a pair of jeans with an Old Navy label. They also found barcoded store tags bearing the retailer's name.
In the report, which was produced by Laila Al-Arian, Kamat said that roughly half of the 20 girls inside the facility were under the age of 14.
"Through the barcodes on the tags we found at the finishing house, we were able to match the garments to ones at Old Navy stores in the U.S.," she narrated.
Gap gave the network a response pre-broadcast, saying the clothes that Kamat and her team had uncovered were either "counterfeit or improperly acquired." The company also posted a more lengthy statement online.
"Gap Inc. does not do business with Samie's Finishing House, the facility highlighted in Al Jazeera America's 'Fault Lines' program," the company said. "A prompt investigation of Samie’s Finishing House found no Gap Inc. products and no evidence that any Gap Inc. brands had placed orders there."
The company also leveled a serious charge at the network: Al Jazeera's report was not only "misleading" but "false," it claimed.
According to Gap's own investigation, the clothes do not appear to be knockoffs. (The counterfeiting theory would not explain the store tags Al Jazeera found in the first place. If someone were bootlegging Old Navy clothes, why go to the trouble of creating fake store tags, complete with barcodes, if they would never be sold in actual Old Navy stores?)
Having investigated the matter on the ground, Gap says it seems one of their contractors may have pawned off product that had failed a quality inspection without destroying the "Old Navy" tags. The company allows suppliers to sell rejected product so long as all its markings are stripped.
"Our investigation has led us to believe that one of our vendors may have improperly sold rejected product that failed to meet our qualifications, without removing or destroying our official labels and tags before selling to a local wholesaler, in violation of our vendor agreement," Gap said. "This is a serious breach of our policy, and our team on the ground is in discussions with the vendor to ensure appropriate action will be taken."
If this is the case, it does not contradict Al Jazeera's reporting. Kamat said in the report: "Through the barcodes on the tags we found at the finishing house, we were able to match the garments to ones at Old Navy stores in the U.S." She did not say those particular clothes ended up in stores, only that the items matched others back in the U.S., i.e., were not counterfeit. Neither did she assert that Gap Inc. had a relationship with the finishing house.
As Kamat told HuffPost, "What we can say is that we saw and filmed little girls working on Old Navy jeans."
Scott Nova, head of the Worker Rights Consortium, a well-regarded nonprofit that monitors factory conditions, told HuffPost he thought Gap's explanation was a "hail Mary." (Al Jazeera had consulted Nova on the clothes and interviewed him at length as part of the segment.) According to Nova, Gap's contention of an unauthorized sale -- a best-case scenario, public relations-wise -- would still leave the company with plenty of explaining to do, since its contractor's actions apparently landed its product in a facility that employs young girls.
"[E]ven if we lived in some parallel universe where this explanation had credibility, it would not exonerate Gap," Nova said in an email. "They still would have to admit that they chose a grossly unscrupulous supplier and then failed to impose any discipline on that supplier (while nonetheless profiting from the relationship)."
Gap declined to respond to Nova's comments. When asked by HuffPost if Gap considered the episode a failure of oversight and accountability, a spokeswoman said it stood by its earlier statement, which stressed the company's intolerance for child labor and concern for the children in Al Jazeera's footage. The company said it had "notified local authorities and international advocacy agencies so that steps can be taken to ensure the children are cared for and protected." It also called the vendor's sale a "serious breach of policy."
In the wake of the Rana Plaza building collapse, which killed more than a thousand workers in Bangladesh earlier this year, Gap, Walmart and a number of other U.S.-based retailers declined to join mostly European brands in signing a binding safety agreement for that country. Instead, Gap and Walmart spearheaded a separate safety program of their own, which labor rights experts like Nova have said lacks teeth.
Al Jazeera's report had a single unifying theme: that the complex contracting schemes used by Western retailers can leave them oblivious to abuses committed by agents and subcontractors down the line. However the "Old Navy" jeans wound up in a finishing house that apparently employs underage girls, it seems to have happened without the awareness or approval of Gap Inc.
As a Bangladeshi factory auditor said in Al Jazeera's report, "Using agents means you don't know your entire supply chain. You don't have any idea. That's the danger."
(huffingtonpost)

 

[fashionista-ta]

^ As I continue reading the current issue of Yes! magazine (theme is stuff & the real cost of all our stuff), it's explaining that even for well-intentioned companies (which I'm not at all sure Old Navy is), it's difficult to know their entire supply chain.

One article featured comments from Eileen Fisher's corporate responsibility officer, explaining that when asked if they used any fabric from a particular country, she wasn't immediately able to answer. For a sizeable company, there may be tens of thousands of points in their supply chain.

What you see here with Gap, Old Navy, Walmart, etc. is their being confronted with direct knowledge of severe problems in their supply chains yet and refusing to fully address them. Needless to say, I cannot get behind that.

 

[adorefaith]

here's a company who seem to be moving in the right direction...

https://ca.everlane.com

 

[lucy92]

it's all a smokescreen.

there is no excuse for these brands to hire these unscrupulous vendors. especially pleading ignorance when they are giving these vendors tens of millions of dollars worth of business.

 

[YoninahAliza]

"Our investigation has led us to believe that one of our vendors may have improperly sold rejected product that failed to meet our qualifications, without removing or destroying our official labels and tags before selling to a local wholesaler, in violation of our vendor agreement," Gap said. "This is a serious breach of our policy, and our team on the ground is in discussions with the vendor to ensure appropriate action will be taken."

I just love how the spokesperson says that a vendor may have sold defective garments bound for Old Navy stores is a "serious breach of our policy," yet no real word on the fact that time and time again, companies within the Gap Inc corporation have been cited for mistreatment of workers. Such irresponsible behavior isn't talked about and they just blame others for their actions when everyone with some sense knows they are lying. It's interesting ta-ta, that you mention that even a respected company like Eileen Fisher has their issues and doesn't always know exactly whats going on. It's a bit mind boggling to think about. You would think that those who run fashion brands would want to have a sense of transparency and keep track of everything that goes on within a company. But maybe not knowing (or at least pretending not to know what goes on) is how people ease their conscious.

 

[fashionista-ta]

^ I think the problem is that the company hires contractors, those contractors hire subcontractors, and so on, and so on. Then they're on the other side of the earth. And if they know when auditors are coming, they can unlock the doors, connect the smoke alarms, or undo whatever life-threatening measures they've put in place.

I was reading that the latest method to find out what's really going on is to find out from the workers. There are at least a couple different organizations who have set up hotlines where workers can anonymously report on conditions in their own language. Companies can pay a fee to be informed through these channels of what's really going on in their factories. Eileen Fisher uses a service like this, and following recent disasters, Walmart has signed up for a different one.

Let me find a quote ... this is from Yes! I might add that this is a magazine that strongly opposes Walmart & refuses to publish anything about their greenwashing activities.

The average Fortune 1000 company has 20,000 to 40,000 subcontractors that span the globe. Impotent regulation, weak law enforcement, and limited investment in monitoring and verification of working conditions make it difficult even for well-intentioned companies to make sure their products are produced without exploitation....

The supply chains are complex, and there's no single organization monitoring the way the things we buy are produced....

Generally, a company is not liable for the practices of a sub-contractor [I assume he means legally, as it's clear that they are morally responsible]. Many companies do try to establish some ethical sourcing practices, but information is hard to come by and there's no central source for such data.

Eileen Fisher, Inc., sells women's clothes and accessories and generates more than $300 million in annual revenue. It has a profit-sharing arrangement with its US workers, and has a strong commitment to progressive human rights practices.

Still, according to Amy Hall, director of social consciousness, the brand's corporate responsibility arm, when a nonprofit wrote to them asking if Uzbek cotton was used in their clothing, she had to admit they didn't know fore sure. In Uzbekistan, chidren are routinely forced by the government to leave school during the harvest and pick cotton--cotton that ends up in garments sold all over the world.

"Every single fiber we use, there are questions about it," Hall said. "How is it sourced, how is it processed? Can it be done better ...?" The questions, she said, have led them to where they are today: wanting to deeply and thoroughly map their supply chain to provide a more complete picture of where things come from and the conditions and needs of workers all along the way.

It seems clear to me that it's not easy to know exactly what's going on. But when it's in your face & you won't step up ... those are the brands we should all be boycotting for sure IMO.

 

[YoninahAliza]

Has anyone looked at the Local Wisdom project??? I found the website awhile ago and I'm just gobsmacked by all the inspiration on the website. It collects ethnographic research on repurposing clothing and challenging the fashion industry's dependency on fast fashion. The creators of the site photograph and interview individuals about a particular outfit or garment asking them what it means to them and how they've made it into a sustainable outfit and whatnot. Also, I've found that by reading such stories and looking at the photographs it's given me particular ideas as to how I can reuse my own wardrobe.

http://www.localwisdom.info/

 

[BetteT]

Please nominate a brand that you think exemplifies these values: Nominations for the Honorary Award for Ethical Fashion for the 2013 "Tiffies"

 

[HeatherAnne]

H&M May Raise Prices (for a Good Reason)

Of all the high street retailers, H&M has, at least publicly, appeared the most actively dedicated to sustainability, and soon that may come at a financial cost to shoppers.

For instance, it has an “eco-friendly” Conscious Collection, a recycling program and has been dedicated to using organic cotton. Recently, and perhaps more importantly, it has become more transparent about its manufacturing practices, disclosing the names of its supplier factories in its latest sustainability report.

Now, it’s going a step further by trying to improve conditions for workers in those factories — important given the recent barrage of deadly factory fires in Bangladesh. Last month, it release a roadmap outlining how it will pay all of its garment workers a living wage. And, though it wasn’t mentioned in H&M’s roadmap, part of that plan may involve raising prices. Helena Helmersson, head of sustainability at H&M, told AFP Monday that price increases “might be a possibility” in the long term.

A rep for H&M told us Wednesday: “We don´t think that this strategy will result in a price increase for our customers. It is an investment in our customer offering and will benefit H&M long term. It is important to remember that wages are only one of several factors that influence the sourcing costs and the prices in our stores. We also believe that this will lead to more stable production markets, with better efficiency and productivity. Long term this will be profitable for both us and our suppliers.”

When H&M co-hosted a panel discussion on sustainability in fashion this April, the consensus was that companies — H&M included — were generally going to put profit above sustainability. That’s just how business works. So it makes sense that H&M might have to raise its prices — but are shoppers ready and willing to pay more, even if they understand why?

fashionista

 

[lucy92]

it's a scam. they won't say what the "living wage" actually is. washingtonpost:

H&M says it will pay factory workers a ‘fair living wage.’ It doesn’t say what that means.

Posted by Lydia DePillis on November 26, 2013 at 5:01 pm

H&M's "roadmap." (H&M)

On Monday, H&M announced what looked like bold progress towards paying its factory workers something above poverty wages for the hours they spend pumping out flimsy garments. The Swedish company's "four-pronged approach" went into wide media release, and at a time when most other retailers are still dithering over how to help in the wake of the catastrophic building collapse in Bangladesh in April, positioned it as the socially responsible corporation to beat.
But how real are H&M's proposals? They're summarized on a cute one-pager, mostly rendered in the non-committal passive voice, as follows:

• "H&M will support factory owners to develop pay structures that enable a fair living wage, ensure correct compensation, and overtime within legal limits. This will be explored by implementing the Fair Wage Method in our role model factories, from which we will source 100% of the products during five years."
• "H&M's strategic suppliers should have pay structures in place to pay a fair living wage by 2018. By then, this will reach around 850,000 textile workers. Our strategic suppliers are currently 750 factory units producing about 60% of our products."
• Starting in 2014, H&M will "Develop our price method to ensure the true cost of labor. By doing this we secure that we pay a price which enables our suppliers to pay their textile workers a fair living wage and reduce overtime."
• "H&M will encourage governments to engage in a process to identify a living wage level, set a legal minimum wage accordingly and review wages annually thereafter."

Plus a few things about educating workers, strengthening unions, and strengthening their "social dialogue" project.
What's missing here? An actual number for what it'll pay workers. The closest H&M comes to that is saying it'll use the "Fair Wage Method" developed by Daniel Vaughan-Whitehead, who manages wage policy at the United Nations' International Labour Organization. The Fair Labor Association describes it as a 12-step way of determining whether rates are in fact fair, including factors like productivity and prevailing wages, and providing for annual review. But it's not exactly a formula, and therefore would be difficult to dispute when -- and if -- H&M arrives at a final number.
Those who've been working around these issues for a long time find the lack of specificity exasperating.
"If they want to pay living wages, they should pay living wages. They should give themselves a near-term deadline and give the world a number," said Scott Nova, executive director of the Worker Rights Consortium advocacy group. He was at a meeting in Stockholm a few weeks ago where H&M announced the initiative to stakeholders like labor unions and NGOs, and didn't make much of what it had to offer. "Just staying 'we're for a living wage, in 5 years we're going to pay an undefined amount in a subset or our factories,' that's not credible."
How much would paying a living wage even cost H&M? According to the WRC's calculations, labor comprises about 6 percent of a factory's costs, and only 1 or 2 percent of the final retail price. Bangladesh, where two of H&M's pilot factories are located, is proposing to double its minimum wage to about 31 cents an hour. The WRC estimates that a living wage would be more like $1.50 an hour. That would increase the price of a tank top, but not by much.
Meanwhile, H&M is already a member of the Fair Labor Association, which has a code of conduct that addresses adequate wages (the FLA certifies H&M's work only in China). Even so, it still pays the same rock-bottom prices as Wal-Mart and Nike.
"We've been down the road many times. This has all the hallmarks of fluff," Nova says. "Where H&M has the power to make it happen now is in the factories now. If they are willing to take the steps necessary, they can achieve it. Why are they not doing that, is the question."

 

[fashionista-ta]

^ But it would be a different number in each and every country where they'd have factory workers, right?

 

[lucy92]

^ But it would be a different number in each and every country where they'd have factory workers, right?

that depends on how the trans pacific partnership treaty goes. a draft of the treaty was leaked recently which listed that companies could export items from (vietnam for example) into the US (and other countries where H&M have markets and are included in the treaty) duty free (versus made in china which has an import tax)

if this happens than H&M will likely pull out of countries that require the duty entirely.

it's a race to the bottom to find the lowest cheapest wage possible with no duty or taxes.

 

[lucy92]

H&M Plans to Pay Garment Workers Fair Wages. Here's Why That's Probably BS.


—By Dana Liebelson
|


Terry Chay/Flickr
I recently wrote about the Indian sumangali scheme, wherein girls from poor, rural families are recruited to work in clothing factories, on the promise that they will earn enough money for a dowry. Instead, many toil in exploitive conditions, earning far less than recruiters told them they would. Many of these factories sell to American companies. H&M has been accused by the Centre for Research on Multinational Corporations of using sumangali labor in the past, but the company is trying to rid its factories of the scheme by 2014. Shortly before Black Friday, H&M announced that it also plans to start paying 850,000 workers at 750 factories—out of its some 1,800 total factories around the world—a fair wage by 2018.
Fair-trade experts say that the announcement is a step in the right direction, but some point out that the plan has major holes. Most notably, the factories that will be covered under the fair-wage program produce just 60 percent of H&M's products, and the company did not say whether it would eventually extend the plan to its other factories, as well. Here are a few other red flags:
H&M won't say how much it will pay workers in each country. Anna Eriksson, a spokesperson for H&M, told me that that the company does not believe US buyers should dictate a minimum wage to its factories; instead, it expects factory employees and factory owners to work together to come up with a fair wage. Wages will depend on the country and the factory, and must meet the Fair Wage Method, which was developed by Daniel Vaughan-Whitehead, who oversees wage policy at the United Nations' International Labour Organization. This standard is based on a number of factors—such as promoting "acceptable living standards" and being "comparable to wages in similar enterprises in the same sector." H&M also plans to support unions that empower workers to negotiate for wages, and encourage governments to identify a living wage level.
But Scott Nova, executive director of the Worker Rights Consortium, criticizes the company's plan to rely on governments and factories to set wages. Nova told the Washington Post, "Just saying 'we're for a living wage, in 5 years we're going to pay an undefined amount in a subset or our factories,' that's not credible." Jefferson Cowie, the chair of the Department of Labor Relations, Law, & History at Cornell University, echoed those concerns. "It is hard to see governments taking a strong role in boosting wages in the short run," he told me. Fair wages can also be hard to enforce. I saw this firsthand while reporting my sumangali story: In India, the government does have a minimum wage for textile workers—but many of the female workers I spoke with were not being paid that wage, and didn't have access to a union.
H&M claims that increasing wages somehow won't raise prices consumers pay for its clothing. Eriksson says that the company will keep its clothing prices steady for Western consumers by using in-house designers, buying clothing in large volumes, and finding other efficiencies. But Elizabeth Cline, the author of the 2012 book Overdressed: The Shockingly High Cost of Cheap Fashion, says that she doesn't believe that H&M can pay garment workers a living wage without raising retail prices. "How can that be true?" she says. "It makes me think that the company is just riding on unsustainable expansion [and] will just continue to sell more and more low-quality clothes to make up for this increased cost." However, Joel Paul, a law professor and expert in trade policy at the University of California-Hastings, speculates that the claim could, in fact, be true: Because foreign garment factory labor accounts for a tiny percentage of a shirt's total cost, he says, increasing workers' hourly wages from 15 cents to a $1.50—an estimated living wage in Bangladesh—wouldn't substantially undercut profits.
The wage increase won't affect any of H&M's spinning mills. H&M's fair-wage promise does not extend to all of its subcontractors, which include the factories that spin the cotton into thread (also known as spinning mills). In India, most sumangali schemes take place in spinning mills. That the plan doesn't include subcontractors could be a big problem: If some factories in the supply chain are not required to pay a fair wage, garment factories can simply outsource more of their labor to those cheaper operations. When I asked H&M how the company plans to address the challenge of factories outsourcing labor to subcontractors with potentially exploitive conditions, spokesman Håcan Andersson said, "We are not able to assist you further in this matter."
Despite the plan's significant problems, Cornell's Cowie says he believes that H&M deserves some credit for taking baby steps toward fixing a notoriously exploitive industry. "Do they have the perfect solution?" he says. "Absolutely not. If they wanted to pay the highest wages, they wouldn't be shopping for labor in Cambodia and Bangladesh in the first place. But making an open commitment to workers matters—as long as it does not end up being just a cover for their old practices." (motherjones)

 

[lucy92]

Human rights watch has published a 140 page report on cambodia's garment industry and spotlighting human rights abuses at H&M's factories there.

here's an excerpt:

Factory 1 subcontracts work to many other smaller factories.[328] In November 2013, Human Rights Watch visited a subcontracting factory whose workers said that H&M was one of the brands they produced for, work that was ongoing as of April 2014. The factory had no visibly displayed name board. Workers identified the factory using a nickname. The subcontractor factory managers did not issue workers identity cards or written contracts.
In one case, team leaders in the factory 1 told workers that they should work Sundays at an unauthorized subcontractor to help meet production targets. Workers were not paid any special overtime rates for work on Sundays and public holidays. This allowed factory 1 to bypass labor laws governing overtime wages and a compensatory day off for night shifts or Sunday work.[329]
Human Rights Watch spoke to five workers from one subcontractor factory who said they were supplying to factory 1 or one of its branches. They knew they were producing for H&M because the managers had discussed the brand name and designs with workers. The factory also subcontracted with other large factories in the Svay Rolum and Sethbau areas in Kandal province that produce for international brands. The workers were paid on a piece-rate basis and when the factory received many orders, workers said they were forced to work overtime on Sundays and public holidays. On some days they were also forced to do overtime until 9 p.m. and sometimes overnight until 6 a.m. The workers said they were not given any overtime wages.[330]
Workers said they were fearful of forming a union and that eligible workers did not receive maternity leave or pay. From employee accounts, some workers were children younger than 15, the legally permissible age in Cambodia. One woman estimated that 20 of the 60 workers in her group were children. Children worked as hard as the adults, they said, including on Sundays, nights for overtime work, and public holidays when there were rush orders.[331]

features.hrh.org