Few Fashion Brands Serious About Addressing Exploitation
KnowTheChain have launched a ranking of 20 large clothing and footwear companies on their efforts to eradicate forced labor and human trafficking from their supply chains. Their Apparel & Footwear Benchmark Findings Report found only a small group of companies seriously addresses exploitation. Most companies have systems in place to monitor and react to forced labour and human trafficking, but few companies address systemic causes.
The four highest performing companies (Adidas, Gap, H&M and Lululemon) achieve scores above 60/100. Among the lowest performing companies are Hong Kong-based Belle International Holdings (0/100), Chinese clothing manufacturer Shenzhou International Group Holdings (1/100), and the luxury Italian fashion house, Prada (9/100). Across seven measurement areas, the average company score is 46 out of a possible 100. Overall, luxury brands including Hugo Boss, Kering (holding company of Alexander McQueen, Gucci, Stella McCartney and others) and Ralph Lauren score much lower than high street apparel retailers (such as H&M, Inditex or Primark), with none achieving an above average score.
This echoes the findings of Fashion Revolution’s Fashion Transparency Index, published in April 2016, where Prada, Ralph Lauren and other luxury companies received some of the lowest scores.
Longstanding public awareness and pressure, spurred from incidents of child labour in the footwear sector in the 1990s and grave health and safety incidents in Bangladeshi factories in recent years, has resulted in companies putting in place supply chain monitoring systems. However, these have a strong focus on first tier suppliers, while workers tend to be at the greatest risk further down the supply chain. Adidas, which ranked highest in the benchmark (81 out of 100 points), works in partnership with its first tier suppliers to support training for second tier suppliers and subcontractors, as well as develops models to address risks of forced labour in its third tier supply chain.
Forced labour in this sector occurs both at the raw materials level and during the manufacturing stages of apparel and footwear companies’ supply chains. The report finds that all companies benchmarked can improve in rolling out programmes that reach to all tiers of their supply chains. Companies are encouraged to promote direct hiring of workers where possible as well as to perform robust due diligence of third-party recruitment agencies. Companies are also encouraged to engage directly with supply chain workers outside the factory context, allowing companies to get a clearer picture of what is happening on the ground.
“Despite international and brand attention on worker issues for more than twenty years, many retailers haven’t addressed the deep seeded causes of worker abuse in their supply chains. Hopefully this benchmark will help them recognise that they need to do better by the people making their clothes and shoes,” said Killian Moote, director of KnowTheChain.
We can all put pressure on brands to address forced labour and other issues by asking the question #whomademyclothes as transparency is an essential first step towards improving conditions in the supply chain. Use the pledge at the bottom of Fashion Revolution’s home page to send a tweet to your favourite brand.
Myanmar Workers Win Rights At Work
Fifteen minutes before the gray, 12-foot gate of the garment factory compound in Myanmar’s Hlaing Thar Yar industrial zone opens to release workers, vendors selling fried chicken on sticks and bags of nuts gather in anticipation. At a designated time, the guards roll back the gate and the vendors push their heavy carts up a steep hill and into the compound. If they hesitate, they are locked out as guards quickly close the gate behind them.
Minutes later, the gate is opened again, and workers rush down the hill to the dirt road, jostling for a place on the open transport trucks that will take them over rutted roads to packed apartments where they pay nearly a quarter of their wages to live. There, they can again access their mobile phones, which are prohibited from factory premises, where the heavy gate locks them behind steep walls from the start to the end of their daily shifts, six days a week.
The scene is repeated countless times across the vast industrial zone, where more than 700,000 workers toil, including 300,000 garment workers. Corporate brands from around the world source their clothes, shoes and other apparel to factories in Hlaing Thar Yar.
Most of the workers, like Lwin Lwin Mar, 34, migrated to Hlaing Thar Yar, 12 miles northwest of Yangon, from other areas in Myanmar. Lwin Lwin Mar came from Irrawaddy Delta in search of a job after the 2008 cyclone devastated the region. Aung Myint Myat, a co-worker of Lwin Lwin Mar from the Bago region, sends money back home to his relatives, as do many factory workers.
Both garment workers helped form a union at a 200-worker factory, standing up to massive employer resistance. Many workers were fired in 2015 for forming the union, but with the assistance of the Confederation of Trade Unions–Myanmar (CTUM), some workers returned to the job.
“The life of workers is very poor,” says Myo Zaw Oo, a CTUM organizer who helps garment workers form unions and helps solve their problems at the workplace. “Workers don’t know about their rights. They are very vulnerable,” he says, speaking through a translator.
Unions Seek to Ensure Labour Helps Shape the New Economy
Last year, Myanmar passed its first-ever law setting a minimum wage—$83 per month—yet employers do not always pay it. Nor do they follow the country’s minimal safety and health regulations or overtime laws, union activists say, making worker education a top priority for CTUM. Even the full minimum wage is not sufficient for workers to support themselves and their families, union leaders say.
After five decades of military dictatorship, political transformation has opened the country in the past few years, and union leaders have sought to ensure that workers are part of the process structuring the ensuing economic and cultural change.
Shortly after he returned to Myanmar in 2012 after nearly 30 years in exile, CTUM President U Maung Maung met with corporate leaders of international brands at a Washington, D.C., conference sponsored by the Solidarity Center and AFL-CIO. The meeting was part of a labor-backed process to ensure corporate accountability and respect for worker rights are embedded at the start of the foreign investment process in Myanmar.
“Labor needs to be involved from the start,” Maung Maung said at the conference. “I would rather have workers’ rights built in from the beginning rather than added on later.”
Helping Workers Form Unions Across Myanmar
Today, CTUM is spearheading union building at a rapid pace, with more than 60,000 workers forming unions since 2012, when Myanmar passed laws allowing the creation of unions. Factory-level union activists like Two Ko Ko, 32, are identified for leadership potential in CTUM, and invited to take part in training to build their skills.
Now an organizer with the Building, Woodworkers Federation–Myanmar, a CTUM affiliate, Two Ko Ko helps workers form unions at cement and plywood factories in Hmawbi, an hour north of Yangon, as well as at construction sites.
“Workers don’t understand that they have rights that are on the books,” he says. “Law enforcement is weak. Unions help make employers follow the laws.”
For instance, says U Lim Mg, union president of a 170-worker clay factory where workers formed a union in 2012, “the union is enforcing the 1951 Factory Act that governs hours and safety.”
The workers ground and mold clay to make floor and roof tiles and are exposed to heavy dust. But until they formed a union, the employer provided only flimsy paper masks. Now, they have proper protective equipment, says Two Ko Ko.
“I have seen much progress since the union has been at the workplace,” says Tin Tin Than, 43, who has worked as cleaner for 10 years at the clay factory. She says their collective bargaining agreement ensures the employer pays the minimum wage and provides transport to and from the factory.
Despite the many challenges, including strong employer resistance to unions and a broad lack of familiarity with fundamental worker rights, Myanmar union activists like Two Ko Ko are determined to help workers achieve decent wages, safe and healthy workplaces and respect at work.
“The best part of my job,” he says, “is when people recognize their rights and decide to form unions.”
How can men recognise the contributions of female garment workers in Bangladesh?
Mahbub Rahman, a student at Dhaka University, was whiling the sultry afternoon away on a rooftop a few months ago when he overheard a conversation that made him sit up.
Mahbub, 23, believes that attitudes of men need to change
“Four female garment factory workers were there, discussing their problems with their families. Despite earning money, they still had difficulty gaining respect in their husbands’ family, and so on….”
Those comments stuck with him for a long time after.
“It struck me that that was genuinely the scenario that was so problematic in our country. Despite earning money and contributing to their families they had no recognition, no personal life, and people refuse to talk to them as they are poor.”
Bangladesh’s export trade is dominated by the ready-made garments (RMG) industry. It became the first multi-billion dollar manufacturing and export industry in Bangladesh in 2005, accounting for 75 per cent of the country’s earnings. Over 80 per cent of the garment workers in Bangladesh are female.
“The participation of women in the RMG industry, as well in other sectors, is on the rise. At a bank where I did an internship, 25 out of 30 employees are female,” Mahbub noted.
Anna Troupe, Head of the Fashion Department at BGMEA University of Fashion and Technology (BUFT), with participants from the RMG industry and volunteers on a pilot project
“But opportunities most women to gain social recognition or creative expression through leisure activities are still limited. For me, the main problem that women face is that many of them remain confined within the boundaries of their rooms.”
Despite the significant impact of organisations like Grameen Bank and the BRAC that have done much to address issues of gender equality, Mahbub believes that women continue to remain on the bottom rungs of the social ladder due to the poor mentalities that men possess.
“The main problems still reside within the family. The approach towards women in our country is still too mean. We need more organizations to work towards women empowerment, promoting the idea that we should treat women fairly as fellow human beings.”
Even now, if a woman says that she is planning to start a business, people will mock or discourage her.
“People say, ‘Oh no! You can’t do that! Business is only for men, you have to take a lot of risk and suffer a lot of pressure, and you have to go to many places and stay out till late at night!”
“But I think that even poor and less educated women have the means and the ability to start their own businesses if they want to.”
Even though more female university students like Mahbub’s schoolmates are now working proudly in multi-national corporations or local organizations, even a woman from an educated family often has to face such obstacles if she proposes the idea of becoming an entrepreneur.
“The main problem women are facing is that they are confined within the boundary of their room. But they are also innovative people who can lead an organization or even a country. Yet, they don’t get the chance!
Spurred by his belief that it is the psychological attitudes of men towards women that can best bridge the gender gap in his counry, Mahbub joined Lensational in February as a programme leader, working with female employees in the RMG industry to find means of expression through photography.
With participants and volunteers at the photography workshop
“I wanted to become involved with an organisation that can at least help them to think — “yes, I can do that.”
It is that crucial mental shift — so very lacking due to the discouraging attitudes of men — that can help women share their story with the world, learn about their rights, and achieve their true potential.
Lensational will be returning to Bangladesh in May 2015 to equip 10 factory workers and 8 surf girls with permanent access to cameras. Read more about our project here.
Mahbub completed his undergraduate degree in Marketing from the University Of Dhaka in March 2015 and is preparing to start his MBA degree in May. Now based in Dhaka, Bangladesh, he joined Lensational in February 2015. He is also Head of Brand Promotion and Communication at the Dhaka University Social Business Society (DUSBS).
Exploitation or emancipation? Women workers in the garment industry
The garment industry is and has historically been one of the most female-dominated industries in the world. Today, more than 70% of garment workers in China are women, in Bangladesh the share is 85%, and in Cambodia as high as 90%[i]. For these women, development is closely linked to their conditions at work. It’s about gaining a decent pay, working under dignified conditions and having basic work security. It’s about moving out of poverty, being able to provide children with education, and to become more independent and grow as an individual.
The reality for most garment workers in the Global South is far from here. Although producing for some of the most profitable companies in the world, they are working for poverty wages, under dreadful conditions, and they have to undertake an excessive amount of overtime. In Bangladesh (the world’s second largest exporter of clothes) the minimum wage for garment workers is 5,300 taka (£45/€62) per month which is far from the 8,900 taka (£75/€104) that are needed to cover a worker’s basic needs, and even further away from a living wage. Many garment workers are working between 60 and 140 hours of overtime per week and it is common to be cheated of the overtime pay. Health and safety are often neglected, workers are denied breaks, and abuses are common – to mention a few of the problems in the industry[ii].
Yet, there are some who argue that this exploitation is the road to female empowerment. Historically, women’s integration into paid work has been one of the important forces to emancipation and growing gender equality. Liberal writers such as Leslie T. Chang, argue that the globalised garment industry has had this empowering effect as women from poor backgrounds are able to find work and earn a salary[iii]. In similar vein, social economist Naila Kabeer emphasises how work in the garment industry has allowed women in Bangladesh to gain recognition for their economic contribution for the family, and that garment workers tend to be more conscious about their rights and have a more critical mindset than other women[iv].
These gains are important to recognise. Still, there are reasons to be sceptical about the transformative potential that garment work has for women in the Global South. Firstly, it is important to understand the way in which women have been integrated to the industry. In the neoliberal deregulated global economy, developing countries are competing to produce for multinational brands by offering the lowest costs and the fastest and most flexible production. In a labour-intensive industry such as garment, this is mainly achieved by making labour cheaper and more flexible, that is, by paying lower salaries, push for longer hours, and reducing work and environmental standards.
Women’s integration to the garment factories has played a crucial role in this process. Factory owners have been taken advantage of women’s unequal position in society to form an even cheaper, more docile and flexible work force. So, rather than challenge their subordination in society, work in the garment industry is reproducing it. Women tend to earn significantly less than men, they face systematic discrimination, and they are only able to access the lowest paid jobs with very poor prospects for promotion. Many of them have low work security, and if they are not prepared to work on the terms set out by their employers they run the risk of losing their jobs[v].
The exploitation of women workers has allowed European fashion companies to make huge profits while denying the workers who produce their clothes the most basic rights. By outsourcing production, these companies are able to both step away from their responsibility and to play producers against each other to get the best and most profitable deal. The deregulated nature of the global economy makes worker’s legal protection very thin and their right to organise and bargain collectively is constantly restricted.
Despite these challenges, there are many women who are mobilising into unions and other labour movements to challenge the inequalities and exploitation in the garment industry. From Bangladesh, to Cambodia and Honduras, workers are defying threats, violence, social oppression and powerful capitalist forces in order to defend their basic rights. Their struggle is key for the development of the workers, their families and whole societies. It also has an important empowering effect for women who commonly are marginalised and discouraged to act politically. This could allow real emancipatory change for women and the chance to move out of poverty and become stronger, more independent individuals.
The citizens of Europe have an important part to play in their struggle. Garment workers need resources and support to confront the powerful forces that they are up against, and there are many organisations that are working on these issues, including Clean Clothes Campaign, War on Want and TRAID. By supporting them we can make an important contribution for the garment workers’ fight. We can also act in solidarity with garment workers by putting pressure on the European firms – notably to pay up for the production and ensure that production is not going to be moved to a new location if labour prices go up. Toothless CSR policies are not enough. We need real commitments from fashion companies and they have to stop counteracting the struggle of garment workers.
Moreover, we must campaign for changes in the global garment industry to stop large fashion retailers from playing producers against each other. Profits can no longer come to any price. Ethics and the environment have to be brought into the centre of the debate and we need to show that, as European citizens, we do not accept the violations that are taking place in the garment industry. European fashion brands should become accountable for the human rights abuses that are taking place in their supply chains, and they should be obliged to ensure that fair wages and work conditions are met. Organisations such as CORE and European Coalition for Corporate Justice are currently campaigning for these changes on national and EU levels, and by supporting them we can make their campaigns grown larger.
Coming back to the initial question of development, the garment industry could have a great potential as an emancipatory force for women in the Global South. However, as we have seen, work in in itself is not sufficient for creating development and challenge gender inequality – the nature of work is as important and this has to be urgently reconsidered. The most important source for that change comes from the garment workers themselves, but the people in Europe has an important role to play by supporting their struggle and campaigning for legislative change on the national and EU levels. Together we can build strength and push for a fairer and sustainable fashion industry.
Emilie Schultze, MSc graduate in Development Studies, SOAS University of London
Photo credits: Rainbow Collective
[i] Rock M. (2001) p. 34 in ‘The rise of the Bangladesh Independent Garment Workers’ Union (BIGU)’ in Hutchison J. and Brown A. (eds.) Organising Labour in Globalising Asia, London and New York: Routledge; Hilary J. (2013) p. 110 in ‘The Poverty of Capitalism: Economic Meltdown and the Struggle for What Comes Next’, Pluto Press: London
[ii] Bloomberg, Bangladesh raises minimum wage for garment workers after unrest. Available at: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2013-11-13/bangladesh-garment-factories-to-stay-shut-amid-worker-protests
War on Want (2011) p. 4 in Stitched Up: Women workers in the Bangladeshi garment sector, London: War on Want
