Labour behind the Label – Let’s Clean up Fashion Report 2007

Last year Labour behind the Label released a report entitled Let’s Clean up Fashion, the report interogated eleven high street retaillers claims about their ethical trading programmes and concluded that none of the companies were doing enough. On Friday, Labour behind the Label Released their 2007 update. This years report focuses on three issues: wages, freedom of association and collective bargaining and moving beyond monitoring.

The report notes in its introduction the vast differences between the wages of company directors and exceutives and those of the workers at the other end of the supply chain. It states that two years ago Sir Phillip Green claimed a £1.2 billion dividend, enough to double the salaries of Cambodia’s entire garment workforce for 8 years.

Lets Clean up Fashion 2007 analyses how many companies have been targetted for exposes in the last year. It argues convincingly that these exposes are not just troublesome cases, but are the result of endemic cases in the industry. It concludes that whilst some companies are now admitting there is a problem with wages in the sector, only a few have done anything about it and of those very few are engaging with the problems systematically.

Gap, New Look and Next however, comes out rather well.  The report stated “Gap’s strength has been in building positive relationships with trade unions and NGOs, dealing quickly and effectively with problems in factories when they emerge, and taking a lead on building cross-sector work.” Labour behind the Label state  that New Look are “one of the companies most open to our concerns.” They are encouraged by New Look’s work attempting to come to grips with a living wage in Bangladesh and their approach to using local groups for monitoring and verification. In Labour behind the Label’s view “Next seems to have started to take up our challenge of moving beyond pilot projects to a more systematic approach, at least in terms of the living wage.” Well done Gap, New Look and Next. 

It’s been a while…

But don’t worry we have been very busy! Not least with delivering babies, doing countless ethical audits across the world, and learning something about the way consumers think about ethical trade. 

A consumer survey was published last week which found that many consumers do not believe fashion retailers’ claims on ethical sourcing. It also stated that the most important issue to consumers was whether or not there were underage or child workers making the products that they were buying. 

The study, published by TNS Worldpanel Fashion, asked 7,000 people about the ethical credentials claimed by UK retailers. 45% said that they were sceptical. It suggested that older buyers (over 55) were more interested in ethical claims than those under the age of 25.

Our own experience shows that customers are pleasantly surprised to hear how much work certain fashion retailers are doing on ethics. More people are checking the labels for information. More people are becoming more discriminating in which claims they choose to believe.

Here at Impactt we welcome increased consumer interest. We welcome the exposes and the media coverage, but it would be great if retailers, brands, NGOs, unions and journalists could report more credible good news stories to customers – more stories to show that by working hard on these issues we can all make a difference to the lives of the people making the stuff we buy.

Labour standards and wages the focus of a resolution at Tesco’s AGM today

We are all waiting with baited breath to hear about the outcome of the shareholder resolution at the Tesco AGM today. The campaign group Action Aid have brought Gertruida Baartman, a fruit picker from South Africa, over to speak about her experiences at this years AGM. It is the second year that Ms Baartman has visited the AGM. Last year Ms Baartman told how she worked very long hours for £3.41 per day. She demanded that Tesco use their influence to ensure a fairer deal for workers in their supply chain. She also explained how workers were exposed to dangerous pesticides. Terry Reid, the Chairman of Tesco promised to look into the issue and ensure conditions improved at her farm.

The Guardian have reported today that this year Gertruida has explained how some conditions have improved at her farm, especially after Tesco’s Chairman visited in May. However she says that her pay has not improved.

Tesco for their part have stated that they are members of the ETI and take labour standards in their supply chain very seriously.

At today’s meeting Tesco’s shareholder will be asked to consider a resolution demanding higher standards for workers in Tesco’s global supply chain. If passed, the resoulution would oblige Tesco to “appoint independent auditors to ensure that workers in its supplier factories are guaranteed decent working conditions, a living wage, job security and the right to join a trade union of their choice.”

Many of the larger shareholders are unlikely to support the resolution, because it asks the company to ‘guarantee’ conditions. Something that with the best will in the world Tesco is unlikely to be able to ensure. However the resolution, which was tabled by War on Want’s company secretary, Ben Birnberg, has the support of investors like the Joseph Rowntree Foundation.

There is still a great deal of pressure on supermarkets to show that they are responding to these issues. It is unlikely to go away.

Unfair labour for the Olympics

The Playfair 2008 coalition released a report on Sunday alleging poor labour conditions in factories making goods for the 2008 Olympics. No Medal for the Olympics on labour rights focuses primarily on child labour, excessive hours and poor wages. The Playfair coalition includes the Clean Clothes Campaign, Intertational Textile Garments and Leather Workers Federation (ITGLWF) and the International Trade Union Conference  

The allegations though extremely worrying, reflect the general situation in China. Campaigners should be congratulated on their dedication to uncovering the issues. Researchers worked in the factories alongside workers to discover what conditions were reallly like. In one factory they found 20 children, some as young as 12, working in their school holidays. In another factory they found forced overtime, fines and pay 65% less than the local minimum wage.

Play Fair 08 are calling on the International Olympic Commitee to ensure labour standards are upheld. Poor standards clearly contradict Olympian values. After similar campaigns around the 2004 Athens Olympics the IOC should have been better prepared this time around.  

Ambitious new Nike Corporate Responsibility Report

 Nike has in the past few days (May 31, 2007) released their Corporate Responsibility report. The section dealing with ‘Workers in Contract factories’ makes interesting reading. It starts by acknowledging that the 800,000 workers in their supply chain overshadow any other direct constituency; that 80% of these workers are women aged between 18 and 24 and  they are themselves significant agents of change for their wider communities.Nike has set themselves some very ambitious targets. They state they want to bring systemic change for workers’ rights in their supply chain and in the industry at large. In particular, by 2011 they intend to:

• Eliminate excessive overtime in their contract factories
• Implement tailored human resource management systems and educational training for workers in their focus factories
• Implement Freedom of Association Educational programmes in 100 percent of focus factories
• And lead multi-brand collaboration on compliance issues in 30 percent of their supply chain

Nike describe how their programme has gone through three iterations. Generation I and II were about standards and monitoring, Generation III they argue is about ‘responsible competitiveness’, identifying and remediating root causes with systemic approaches.  Specifically it focuses on:

• Building excellence in factory remediation
• Developing sustainable sourcing strategies
• Building business integration and accountability
• Increasing contract factory ownership of corporate responsibility
• Building industry coalitions

Nike used to be synonymous with sweatshops. They are now, along with the GAP, widely acknowledged within the ethical trade community as having the leading and most well resourced ethical trading programmes of all companies. That’s not to say they haven’t got problems. No companies can guarantee that their supply chains are problem free. After all this is about human relationships and about 800,000 young women in very poor countries. 

Nike argues that most people in ethical trade have become experts in rooting out the bad, but the real challenge is in outlining and delivering a vision of success.

One could quibble about whether all ethical traders are finding the problems in their supply chains, however Nike are right about the need for successful visions. Nike should be applauded for setting themselves such ambitious goals. But the proof of the pudding will be in the eating.

Chinese Workers Paid With Fake Cash

There was a burst of incredulous laughter from one side of the Impactt office this afternoon, as this news piece dropped into our inboxes, signalling a new low for labour standards in China. 

The article, posted on ChinaCSR.com, reports that 20 workers at an unnamed jeans-dyeing factory in Guangdong were paid in fake bank notes. When the workers asked the factory to exchange the fake notes for real ones, they were dismissed. 

The factory reportedly claimed that they were victims of the forgery as well, and that they would pay the workers in real currency when they had resolved the issue with their bank. But this does not explain the dismissal of the workers, and goes against the additonal reports that the factory ‘usually uses the fake notes only for new workers’.  

The story is in fact not remotely funny.

We have spent the past 30 minutes discussing what we should say on this matter, and how we as a company should react to the news. What we all agree on is that this is a form of forgery that goes well beyond the common practice of faking books to show that workers have been paid the correct amount of real currency.