Would you buy cheap child-sweatshop made clothes? Poll results/discussion

timtamaddict

There is far more to this than you can even begin to imagine! I have never written about this before and there are far to many tangents to go off on and answer every issue but I am angry, dissapointed and can see here that there is no real understanding of how hard it is to trade ethically and responsibly which is something I have experience of and feel qualified to comment on.

I work for a charity that wholesales gifts. All our profits are given away and for the past 28 years the company I work for has been purchasing ethically (so we are not exactly just jumping on the fair trade / ethical bandwagon). We make every possible effort we can to trade honestly and fairly with both our suppliers and the retailers who buy our goods, many people in the company have made a lifestyle choice to earn less, live a simpler life and try to help some of the third world suppliers we trade with.

The main difficulties we encounter?

1) The public do not fully understand the differences between the Fair Trade label, the IFAT label and how there is no decent recognisable identity for companies that are fair and ethical but do not fall within the very restrictive rules of joining IFAT or the Fair Trade Association - if you don't fit exactly, no matter how good you are, you can't join them. For example I work closely with a company in Indonesia that for many years has been providing excellent working conditions, including medical and educational benefits for its employees, gives away money to support handicapped people in Bali and helps other smaller local suppliers to develop in an ethical fashion but can't join because it has to many employees and is therefore too 'commercial' - how ridiculous!

2) The Fair Trade organisation and IFAT cannot cope with the number of applications the growing ethical market is generating - IFAT have only just started taking applications again after a moratorium of in excess of 6 months. I do not believe they have the staff or commercial experience to deal with the situation. I have an example of them taking over six months to reply to a letter that had to be sent 3 times to them. There is also a slight suspicion of 'elite club' 'your face has to fit' about them that is putting a lot of companies off even trying to join them. I would comment more but its to risky and not fair for the company I work for.

3) We already use a bona fida company of independent inspectors to check on the majority of our regular suppliers, an expensive process and monitored over the long term seeking continual improvements working together. Some large organisations are now asking suppliers to join SEDEX. No recognition is taken of the existing monitoring and we will have to stop employing the existing inspection company we use and replace them with the organisation preferred by SEDEX. (More good people out of work and the existing monitoring will be wasted and replaced by a system that is not as in depth or supported). There is a ridiculous amount of paperwork involved (as there is with IFAT and the Fair Trade Association) - English is my first language and I found the pages of paperwork complicated, how on earth can someone with English as a second language and usually from a different culture manage? Some of the larger companies will have to employ someone purely to administer the requirements - our smaller suppliers just cant afford it or do not have the time to complete it, they are just trying to make enough money to survive. I do not see any of the larger organisations offering to help pay for this - as someone mentioned previously in this forum they expect loads of samples for free at the lowest possible price and want everything delivered yesterday with no loyalty to producers who have made investments to supply them so why on earth would they consider this? Oh and I forgot to mention the SEDEX joining fee - which can work out to be higher than any profit you would make on an order!

4) On that subject, even the most surprising retailers are not prepared to pay a fair price and will haggle for discounts (and this of course is why I cannot say any names). One of my largest customers is a well recognised charitable organisation. They screw you down to the lowest price possible and just dump you when they can't get their own way, They will not accept any price rises between quotation and placement of order or for ongoing supply - despite the recent oil increases and the Chinese Governments withdrawal of subsidies (which effects even Balinese and Indian producers prices), and then expect you to deliver within a stupidly unreasonable delivery schedule. When you see their products in the shops they have marked up the product to get a far far higher margin than many of the high street multiple retailers while we (and the producers) have to cut our margins to the absolute bare bones. Some even use the phrase 'but we are a charity' when asking us to give them reduced goods. This year we have no choice but to walk away from the business. Someone prepared to sell cheaper can have the turnover - and guess where the lower margins will come from - yep you guessed it!

5) Even when companies inspect factories and have all the certificates of ethical behavior under the sun from producers unless we can have a permanent presence in the factory or each house were home work is undertaken you can never be 100% sure someone isn't lying and behaving badly. We do our best with very intention to be ethical. I do think Primark got it wrong however. Very poor of them to just withdraw from a company but, like the majority of people and companies, 'taking responsibility' and effecting change is something they can't handle. This sadly is human nature and greed - only Governments creating laws, enforcing and prosecuting infringements combined with continuous education from Ethical buyers will change this and it won't happen overnight. The media exposure here is mainly well intentioned at the outset and can achieve good things, its just handled badly in the way it demonises the Companies who get caught out by producers. It is change of attitude and actions not self righteous cripple and destroy we should aim for.

And finally the worst of all.......

6) The MAJORITY of general public are just NOT prepared to pay a fair price for ethically traded goods. (Unless they have been suckered in by some arty trendy marketing campaign that only the already wealthy companies have the budget for). I know that there is some of us out there who do care and will make the effort but sadly its not enough and means we have to subsidize the real cost of ethical goods by buying cheap volume goods, usually from China to support the ethical products. For all the talk here this is a fact. Harsh but true. People are still not prepared to put money where their mouth is.

I am not going to loose faith though. I am going to keep practising the starfish way and hope that bit by bit things will change despite the credit crunch excuse some people need to use. And personally? Well I have been buying less and down sizing for a long time so the credit crunch isn't really going to effect me. If I buy I buy in an informed way from the most reputable source I can except when every now and again as a true girlie I see a pair of shoes I just can't resist and I have to give in - after all none of us is perfect we just do our best Thanks for reading.

JuliaJolie

Oh my God...

Okay, for ANYONE who STILL insists on ignoring what's REALLY going on in these sweatshops, click on the links, sit back for less than 90 seconds and just stare:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=voVgTkTUKFc

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bm32quko9RI

And, if you care to, this one (skip to 7min in if you have too much Primark shopping to do)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aIEAYugtH0A

It takes less work to watch these videos than the work these people are faced with having to do. And I'm sure you'd be watching the video in far more pleasant conditions.

I'm sure most of the people on here can identify with glamorous shop-assistant Stacey in the last video - "I don't give it any thought. India's so fahr away I don't really fink."

Don't worry, moneysavers. India, China, Pakistan - they're all so far away, you don't even need to think!

If you STILL think that a £2 top from Primark is worth this then you have no !!!!ing soul.

fifipat

I would like to see all those shops and suppliers that use children in this way named and shamed. There should be a minimum age and a minimum wage. If these children are orphaned or runaways, these companies should be putting money into the local agencies and schools to help them. They are making a lot of money from these communities, it is about time they put something back. Buying cheaply can be more expensive in the long run as the clothes don't last, fine for a holiday but not if you want to keep your clothes for longer and then they can be recycled by passing them on to your local Charity shop instead of in the bin.

geri1965_2

Brandon wrote: »

The wages paid there have to be viewed in line with local earnings and not with UK earnings.

Of course - but these people employed in sweatshops are being paid half the minium wage of their own country!

x_Bunny_x

JuliaJolie wrote: »

Oh my God...

Okay, for ANYONE who STILL insists on ignoring what's REALLY going on in these sweatshops, click on the links, sit back for less than 90 seconds and just stare:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=voVgTkTUKFc

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bm32quko9RI

And, if you care to, this one (skip to 7min in if you have too much Primark shopping to do)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aIEAYugtH0A

It takes less work to watch these videos than the work these people are faced with having to do. And I'm sure you'd be watching the video in far more pleasant conditions.

I'm sure most of the people on here can identify with glamorous shop-assistant Stacey in the last video - "I don't give it any thought. India's so fahr away I don't really fink."

Don't worry, moneysavers. India, China, Pakistan - they're all so far away, you don't even need to think!

If you STILL think that a £2 top from Primark is worth this then you have no !!!!ing soul.

The woman, on the vid, crying at the end, she seems like a posh student, and like she needs a slap .

India is a completely different culture to us, like if we where to see Africa. The news only shows us the crap parts of both India and Africa etc, they have other parts too. They shouldn't be working in places, and locked in all day, but i also think they could have got a better women to go to India, and not some spoilt brat, which is what it looks like to me. Obviously she is going to think everything is horrible.

If there is a dead dog on the floor, that has nothing to do with making clothes, thats just the people there have not buried it

Edinburghlass_2

You obviously missed the point of the series which was called Blood, Sweat and T-shirts and yes they were all young, posh and students but quite why that means the girl deserves a slap I'm not quite sure.

During the 4 part series they worked in differing areas of the "fashion" business from the biggest factory to the sweatshops and quite how a "better woman" would have fared or put the message across again I'm not quite sure.

Would it have made a better programme if it was a group of middle class people saying, oh well we are in India now so what if there is a dead dog on the floor?

We exploit foreign workers in this country just the same as the US exploits the Philippines and the Mexicans especially if they are illegal. It doesn't make it right but perhaps we should be looking to our own wherever we live. Its not so long ago that we were castigating China and Japan for churning out everything cheaper than the UK from cars to computer bits and the car factories were closing due to cheaper imports. Yes hopefully the big companies outsourcing to India/China are helping via the likes of Tradefair but pulling out altogether certainly isn't the answer.

I once watched a travel programme, can't remember what or where it was but for everyone who stayed in a particular resort the owner donated a school uniform to one of the local children so yes if our big companies can start working with the locals in the countries they outsource to then perhaps conditions will improve.

I'm sure most of the people on here can identify with glamorous shop-assistant Stacey in the last video - "I don't give it any thought. India's so fahr away I don't really fink."

Don't worry, moneysavers. India, China, Pakistan - they're all so far away, you don't even need to think!

If you STILL think that a £2 top from Primark is worth this then you have no !!!!ing soul.

I think if you read most of the replies on here it does show that people do think and have a soul, moneysavers or not.

Glynis

I'm with the others who say that its a simple matter that those kids will starve if they have no work and also that I have no choice in buying cheap, I simply don't have the money to be as ethical as I would like.

Lunar_Eclipse

bryanb wrote: »

You left out the view that these kids may be orphans in a society that has no social benefits, and maybe this is the only way for them to survive.

I am not a Primark shopper (I had no idea how huge their market share is nor the scary following they have), but having watched the Panorama programme on this, this is exactly the tick box I was looking for.

Lunar_Eclipse

Edinburghlass wrote: »

but what can we do about it?

Let your concerns be known to the companies concerned and let them know of your intention to stop shopping there if things are not turned around within a certain, reasonable timeframe. (I would love to know how many letters Primark have received from their loyal fan base regarding this breaking news. Given the age of their average customer however, sadly not many I would guess.)

If people stop shopping at the likes of Primark, they may well be causing a detrimental knock-on effect in India, where the clothes are made. That is not the answer IMO. I really do believe that the only positive way forward is to make it clear that ethical production is paramount and that ideally we will pay more if needs be. 'We' do hold all of the power to force these changes. Under estimate this at our peril.

Sarahsaver

It's not just primark.
how do M&S 'ethically' produce a 3 quid t shirt