I was shocked to find out how extensive this issue is and mortified at the conditions of some factories. Just last week, a report by the Institute for Global Labour and Human Rights, exposed factories in Bangladesh producing Gap clothing for their unlawful labor practices. The facility's 3,750 workers are routinely forced to work over 100 hours a week for only 20 to 24 cents per hour. By the third week in a month, many do not have money left to buy food.
The conditions observed at the Gap factory are common in the garment industry. The International Textile Garment and Leather Workers’ Federation put out a list of 60 retailers in 2011 that sourced merchandise from factories that routinely broke labor laws. In fact, none of the 83 factories they examined paid a living wage to their workers, and that some were below the legal minimum wage for that region. The report concludes that their findings “indicate that widespread violations and abuses of workers’ rights continue to be the norm in the industry.” You can see the full list of retailers named here.And sadly, this does not just an issue in third world countries. In 2000, more than 11,000 sweatshops in the U.S. violated the minimum wage and overtime laws, while over 16,000 had broken health and safety laws
So what can we as consumer's do to halt the detrimental direction the garment industry has taken? We can demand that the companies we patronize uphold their duty to provide safe and clean environments for their workers and pay them a living wage. Doubling the salary of sweatshop workers only increases the consumer cost of an item by 1.8 percent. We can also support businesses who specifically create jobs in third world countries. I highly recommend stopping by the Be.The.Voice Pop Store in Soho. It's a boutique selling fair-trade and slave free products. The assortment of merchandise is beautiful; from leather bangles, to hand knit mittens, to woven bags, it took me a good hour to decide what to purchase. I ended up getting my mom a beautiful handmade silver necklace. They are also hosting a panel discussion on Labor Trafficking this Wednesday. I went to one of their other panel discussions and it was it was great to hear directly from people who are working to solve this issue. I also enjoyed complimentary wine and appetizers.
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| Some of the beautiful merchandise at the Be.The.Voice Pop Up Store |
I'd be a hypocrite to say that I will never shop at H&M or Gap again. But since learning about the unfair labor practices used in factories around the world, I'm reevaluating my shopping habits. I just can't look at a $10 dress without envisioning the woman who made it toiling for 20 hours a day in an unclean factory supervised by an owner who abuses her just to earn so little money that she is unable to sufficiently feed herself or her family. It makes the act of shopping a whole lot more meaningful when I know that I am not contributing to such a serious yet easily fixable problem.
