My clothes, shoes and outrage and where they come from.
The recent article in The Guardian about fashion/leisurewear companies being supplied by factories producing goods without paying minimum wages, living wages, or by forcing illegal overtime makes me feel quite angry and rather sad. I thought, perhaps too optimistically, that we had moved on since the late 1990s and early part of this century. I thought the ire of Naomi Klein's No Logo and the fire it put into the people who saw Fight Club may have made the companies that seek our money also seek to be nicer people who actually give a shit about other human beings.
Seems I was wrong. Seeing as my money will be going toward clothing a child soon as well, it's doubly depressing. If I want my child to grow up respecting other people, how can I possibly justify spending 1000 yen on clothes that a shopworker gets paid 850 yen per hour to sell and the person in a factor gets between 1 to 10 yen an hour to produce? I'm not quite earning enough to be shelling out for Patagonia or similar high-end brands that guarantee fair prices and fair trade.
It's a bloody quandary is what it is. But I won't be spending at Gap or Forever 21, that's a foregone conclusion unless they can show that there is actual, measurable progress and not just talk.
Optimistically, the only thing I've seen to cheer me up is this link via Peter (@cheapasyouare)
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I have had the same feeling as you have.
ReplyDelete'No Logo' was published in 2000, more than a decade ago. Those days I heard and read a lot of articles on the anti-sweatshop movement and calling to boycott Gap or several other "Brands."
Even now, however, sweatshops are thriving in the Asian countries and in Africa. I feel shame that I am a member of "developed countries" who can buy logos. But... how can we... / Tom
Tom,
ReplyDeleteI think the most prescient part of No Logo was the No Choice chapter. The market is flooded with 'cheap' sweatshop-produced goods and thus forces out mid-priced goods. One of the other worrying things is that the luxury brands (Burberry, Ralph Lauren) are also moving to sweatshop production to increase profit margins.
One might imagine that Ralph Lauren and Burberry's consumers are just as apathetic as the youth who purchase Nike and Adidas, but maybe they could be persuaded to vote with their feet and purchase different brands that are untainted by sweatshop labour. Perhaps. In my most optimistic moments.