Fast fashion and the enviroment (according to DEFRA)
The amount of clothes we are buying has more than doubled in the last 10 years and more and more of this is ending up in landfill
1,000,000 tonnes of clothing are thrown away in the UK every year. In the USA it is 10,000,000. We're turning the world into a giant dustbin and there's other problems. Medical research has linked proximity to landfill sites to lung, throat, and prostate cancers, asthma, kidney damage and to increased risk of birth defects including cleft palate, low birth weight, and premature birth.Plus, on top of that landfill produces 27% of the UK's methane emmissions that contributes to global warming
The chemicals used in the textile industry are often extremely harmful to people and the environment. 'Primark on the rack' highlighted the example of Tirupur, a town that has a huge textile trade, where the pollution and the chemicals from the factories has poisoned the river. As well as the environmental damage people who live there are having to get their water from 50 miles away
Cotton crops are one of the world's heaviest consumers of pesticides. As well as damaging the environment thousands of workers die every year as a result of poisoning. 4% of the world total of arable land has been abandoned due to intensive cotton cultivation. In Central Asia 95% of the wetlands and marshes around the Aral Sea have been turned to sand deserts and more than 50 lakes have run dry. Fish and wildlife in the remaining water has died due to altered mineral levels
The Industry Overview
The end of the trade treaty, the Multi-Fibre Agreement, transformed the garment industry in 2005. Free trade was introduced & garment production trade shifted prodominantly towards China & India
With import quota’s imposed on China’s exports, Factory owners were further forced to lower their prices – consequently workers are made to accept dramatically falling pay & conditions
li>The Average womenswear prices fell by a third on average in from 1996-2006, with a new ever-growing demand for ‘Fast (Disposable) Fashion’
Problems in the Industry are structural & therefore difficult to monitor & rectify without dedicated supply chains
"Cutting and running from suppliers following exposure by campaigners or the media only serves to punish those workers brave enough to speak out about their conditions. It certainly won't do anything to improve their lives." Martin Hearson, LBL campaign co-ordinator
The fashion industry has the potential to lift millions of desperate people out of poverty. Very few high street retailers even recognise that paying a living wage is a reasonable demand
Food For Thought
Labour Behind the Label has just published its third ‘Let's Clean up Fashion’ report. This puts high street retailers into categories depending on their commitment to paying overseas factory workers a living wage
The report states that there is now a clear divide between the companies which recognize these issues in the garment industry & are implementing action to help the situation...& those who don’t
According to the report, Monsoon, Gap, Marks & Spencer, Next and New Look have detailed projects in place to improve pay for overseas workers
Sainsbury's, Asda, Tesco, Primark and the Arcadia Group told Labour Behind the Label that they would "do something", but the campaign group said they lacked "concrete information" as to what
The report added that Clarks, Debenhams, French Connection, House of Fraser, John Lewis, Laura Ashley, Matalan, Mosaic Fashions and River Island admitted they had no plans to improve workers' wages
Workforce Conditions
A 10 year-old boy was reportedly filmed making clothes for Gap shops in Europe and the US, as part of an investigation by the Observer newspaper
The boy said he had been sold to a factory owner by his family, and worked for four months without pay. Another boy of 12 said children were beaten if bosses thought they were not working hard enough
In Lesotho, the ICFTU found that “foreign employers in the industrial zones…ignore national legislation & pay wages below the statutory minimum
In Thailand, one plate of rice, one coffee, one days rent and the transport to work use up 90% of a garment worker's wage
In Bangladesh, Garment sector wages have fallen by half in the past ten years. People made desperate by the poverty their £7 per month wages have left them in protested, rioted and went on strike
In Bangalore, Labour costs can represent as little as 2-4% of the garment retail price. A Bangalore factory worker can see just 15p of the T-shirt they make retailing at £8
Trade Unions & Freedom of Association
Trade Union rights are internationally-recognised fundamental human rights, which offer the most effective & legitimate way to ensure that workers get a fair wage (LBL, 2007)
In 2005, nearly 10,000 workers were sacked for trade union involvement
In one Lesotho factory, workers were locked up in their factory for trying to organise a union
‘They factory does have a union but it exists in name only’, Chinese Garment Worker
‘Workers…are not allowed to form any union. The management has warned them that if any one tries to organise workers & form a union he would be handed over to the police’, Bangladeshi Factory worker (supplying Wall-Mart)
ASDA (parented by Wall-Mart) was fined £850,000 for attempting to induce employees to give up their right to collective bargaining
Lip Service
Dr Lui Kaiman at the Institute of Contemporary Observation at Shenzen found that ‘They [retailers & their suppliers] only want to reassure consumers, not to improve conditions’
Suppliers keep two sets of records – one which shows the real wages & hours worked & one to show the auditors