Written by Doug Miller, Thursday 26 November 2009

Neil Kearney, who has died of a heart attack aged 59, was an inspirational leader in the international trade union movement. As general secretary of the Brussels-based International Textile, Garment and Leather Workers’ Federation (ITGLWF), he had just completed a series of union meetings and visits to supplier factories in Dhaka, Bangladesh. He had been to the country more than 50 times since 1988, in particular working with the Spanish multinational fashion retailer Inditex. Recently they had ensured that workers and families whose lives were devastated by the collapse of the Spectrum factory in Savar, north-west of Dhaka, in 2005, in which 64 were killed and many injured, received adequate compensation and medical assistance.

His work with Inditex led to the first international framework agreement on employment standards which focused solely on the protection of workers’ rights in the supply chain of a multinational in the textile and garment sector. His interventions with Inditex in factories in Peru, Turkey, Bangladesh and Cambodia led to the reinstatement of hundreds of workers who had been sacked for joining a trade union; the introduction of proper systems of industrial relations; and, in Cambodia, the removal of short-term contracts of employment in favour of open-ended ones. Neil visited more than 140 countries worldwide, and was tireless and passionate in his defence of those workers who continued to fall prey to the worst excesses of the international outsourcing of garment and footwear production to sweatshops.

Born in Donegal, Ireland, Neil moved to the UK at the age of 17 and took a job in banking, joining the union on his first day at work. In 1972 he joined the then National Union of Tailors and Garment Workers, where he served as head of the information and research department for 16 years. He was active in politics during that period, running for parliament twice in 1974. Four years later, he was successfully elected as a Labour councillor in the London borough of Kensington and Chelsea, where he became leader of the opposition. A lifelong socialist, he remained a member of the Labour party until he resigned over the Iraq war.

He was elected general secretary at the ITGLWF’s sixth world congress in Tokyo in 1988. In a 21-year period of office, he had to contend with a massive upheaval in the sector, which led to wholesale migration of manufacture from the developed to the developing world. This had a great impact on the financial basis of the organisation, which had relied on affiliation fees from its member unions. To mobilise resources to help workers in developing countries, Neil successfully accessed international public funding to mount a series of projects. The elimination of child labour and the improvement of health and safety were prime objectives.

Neil was a founding member of Social Accountability International’s advisory board and, in this capacity, used his knowledge of International Labour Organisation conventions to develop the SA 8000 ethical standard, an industry benchmark on worker rights for supplier factories. He also joined the board of the UK’s Ethical Trading Initiative, where he convinced member companies of the need to replace social audits with proper systems of industrial relations in supplier factories abroad.

As the industry underwent major restructuring after the removal of quantitative limits on clothing imports in 2004, he was a prime mover in the establishment of the MFA Forum (set up as the international Multi-Fiber Agreement came to an end). It aims to improve the sustainability of national garment industries such as those in Morocco and Lesotho, which risk losing jobs as production switched to cheaper locations. He was instrumental in persuading Nike to disclose publicly its supply chain in 2005, and a number of other companies soon followed suit.

Neil seemed to thrive on his punishing travel schedules. During his last day in Bangladesh, he was working on the final detail of a second international framework agreement, meeting with the management and workers of an Inditex supplier and, as usual, supporting his affiliates in their campaign for a living wage.

In Bangladesh, three days of mourning were declared in the textile and garment sector last week. Neil is survived by his wife, Jutta, and his daughters, Nicola and Caroline.

The brands used the excuse that other countries such as India, Pakistan, China and Vietnam were all lowering prices and strongly suggested that Bangladesh do the same.

My question reading this was, what choice do Bangladeshi garment companies have? I’m constantly shocked at how trade negotiations aren’t actually negotiations. As the deficit is passed down the supply chain, price drops and the economic crisis inevitably end up hitting the workers at the bottom hardest, and they’re the people who can’t afford the loss.

The reality is that as people stop shopping and recession spending hits home, companies have got spooked and are grouping together to demand lower prices from countries who are already being driven to produce at very cheap rates. Playground bullying? – yes even in the big world.

The president of the Bangladeshi exporters association noted that trade with Europe and the States had shrunk by 10 % in January, and was worried. As that trade makes up 90% of the industry, this is bad news for workers who will face job cuts in the coming months. Not to mention the industry reverting to temporary contracts to cope with a fluctuating climate, or factories accepting large orders that they can’t really cope with because it sounds like good money.

Last night was the final episode of the programme, along with a set-piece discussion on Newsnight (actual programme here – will work until 20th May).  Stacey and Georgina from the programme were in a discussion with Jane Mill from the British Retail Consortium, which represents a large number of the big fashion retailers.

The girls from Blood, Sweat and Tshirts had obviously been significantly affected by what they’d seen in India, but the problem – they said – was the dearth of positive alternatives on the UK high street.

We’re often asked ‘where can I buy ethical clothes’, a question we’ve tried to answer elsewhere.  The honest truth is that, while there are some fair trade alternatives away from the high street, on the high street there is no way to buy clothes that you can be sure were made in good conditions.  The important thing to do is to buy from whereever and then write to the companies telling them that you’re concerned.

The biggest disappointment of the discussion was Paxman’s line of questioning, which left unchallenged the BRC’s assertion, repeated on its website, that,

BRC members take their responsibility for the welfare of their own and their suppliers’ workers very seriously, especially with regard to the use of child and forced labour.

The reality is that if brands had been taking these matters seriously for the past ten years then a lot more would have changed.  Still, the BRC’s position is a considerable improvement on that which is found elsewhere on its website – outright denial:

It’s a myth that UK retailers source from exploitative, badly run sweatshops. That would be unethical and unworkable. For example China is producing shoes for the world on an unprecedented scale. That requires safe, modern attractive factories, not the backstreets. Standards in factories located in developing countries often surpass those in Europe and America. To provide goods in the quantities, of the quality and to the timescales UK retailers require, they have to. World class facilities in Asia are delivering product to some of the most demanding consumers in the world on the UK high street. Only the best will do and this must be built on total trust in ethical and environmental standards. Any factory which cannot compete on this level will simply not be able to meet the standards demanded by BRC members and their customers. Retailers work with the Ethical Trading Initiative to ensure that high standards are adhered to. Suppliers are systematically inspected . If they are not able to meet these standards contracts are ended and business is taken elsewhere.

Kirsty Wark: In Bangladesh you pay in Tk1841 – £14 per month – but the Bangladesh Institute of Labour studies says that to sustain a family you need Tk4800.  If you paid people better, they would win, and you would win.

Alison Austin: Well I think you have to be very careful what companies and what clothing you’re looking at, and I think Joan’s quite right that customers need to be aware of the issues and ask questions.

KW: But you’re still paying very low wages!

AA: But that’s why we’re making such investment in the Fairtrade clothing market, because there we really can clearly communicate to customers that for the clothing they buy with the Fairtrade Mark, a fair wage has been paid.  But all the other factories that we source from meet the stretching standards of the Ethical Trading Initiative, and we’ve been working with them for a long period of time.

What’s so wrong with that? Well, two things.

First, in response to a question about wages in the manufacture of clothing in Bangladesh, she refers to “Fairtrade clothing.” Ms Austin should be well aware that the Fairtrade mark covers only cotton production (pdf link), not the manufacture of clothing.  In terms of manufacturing, there is no guarantee to consumers that, “for the clothing they buy with the Fairtrade Mark, a fair wage has been paid.”  Bangladesh doesn’t even have a cotton industry, so that can’t be the confusion: it’s hard not to suspect that Ms Austin is playing fast and loose with the facts here.

But then it gets worse!  She continues by saying that, “all the other factories that we source from meet the stretching standards of the Ethical Trading Initiative [ETI].” This suggests that the ETI is some kind of certification body.  The ETI base code does set out some ‘stretching’ standards – though stretching is not the right word, given that they are based on fundamental human rights – but there is no guarantee that companies in the ETI meet those standards.  Indeed, the whole premise of the ETI is that companies work together towards implementing these standards progressively: few companies would claim anything else.  So this is a disingenuous statement to say the least!

We’re very disappointed with Sainsbury’s which, once again, seems to be putting out a public line that everything’s OK, when anyone who knows anything about ethical trading knows that it isn’t.

‘Ethical’ in the sense of ‘ethical fashion’ has come to mean “an approach to the design, sourcing and manufacture of clothing, which is both socially and environmentally sustainable” (Ethical Fashion Forum). But it signifies more than that: it is a fashion trend in its own right, a segment of the market, like petite or smart-casual or goth.

‘Ethical’ in the sense of ‘ethical trade’, means that companies, “take agreed steps to ensure their supplier companies respect the rights of their workers by adhering to national labour laws and the Conventions of the International Labour Organisation (ILO)” (Ethical Trading Initiative).

There are three issues with the first sense of the word ‘ethical’, and much of the media discussion so far:

• First, ethical has become a kind of value-added characteristic, a selling feature, an optional extra. “Do you want the basic jeans or the boot-cut ones?” “Shall I get the plain T-shirt or upgrade to a logo one?” “I could get that standard skirt, or splash out on an ethical one as a treat.” But ethics – in the way that I understand it – is not an optional extra, an either/or: it’s a minimum standard, based on human rights. “I’m not wearing this, it’s real fur,” “I don’t shop at Next because their trousers make me look like a hippo,” “I can’t buy those pants, they were made in exploitative conditions.” That’s the kind of category that ethical decision-making belongs in.
• Second, ethics should not be about expanding a niche, but infiltrating the mainstream. We need to transform a whole industry, and while the ethical fashion niche market can create examples for the others to follow, there is a danger that it will do all the hard work for the mainstream retailers: why expend all that time, money and effort on implementing a code of conduct across hundreds of factories when you can please the same consumers by stocking a few organic, fairtrade cotton lines or a concession from People Tree, which does nothing for your existing factory base?
• Third, there’s the problem that ethics is subjective, and a product can be simultaneously ethical and unethical in different ways. It may be made from organic cotton, but in a factory where trade union rights are suppressed; it could be hand-stitched by a Fairtrade women’s cooperative in Nepal, but then flown or shipped to the UK at significant cost to the environment. So to say a product – or a consumer – is ‘ethical’ is to oversimplify.

I said above that we want to transform an industry, and this is the fundamental point. I don’t want to see the ethical consumer satisfied, I want to harness her anger and energy and enthusiasm to have the biggest possible impact on the industry: it’s not enough if she is placated by being able to spend her money guilt-free – she needs to become active, not just a passive consumer. In short, I want to get my hands on her before Stuart Rose does.

We don’t want the industry to meet the demand from ethical consumers: we want demand to always outstrip supply, both in its volume but also in the depth of what the demand is for. It’s no good if marketing executives can sit in a room looking at data to find out ‘who is the ethical consumer’ and build a strategy to take her money away: the ‘ethical consumer’ needs to be everybody, and needs to want nothing less than across-the-board respect for workers’ rights.

Yet the only way that will work is if we see ethical trade for the complex, progressive approach that it is. The biggest obstacle is still the either/or discourse: ethical/unethical; sweat-free/made in a sweatshop. The reality is that some things may be more or less ethical than others, or perhaps as ethical in different ways, but so long as they are produced through a fashion industry model that has exploitation running through its veins, they will not be perfect. Therein lies the challenge, but also the opportunity.

The online action asks very specifically what concrete steps Primark is taking, and its response here does give us some indication of that, all be it in vague terms. It says that Primark has joined an ETI group to look at the issue, and is working in three of its largest supplier countries to come up with a definition of the living wage. This is good news.

ABF/Primark also seems a little put out that it is being ‘targeted’ by the action. It quotes the profile of Primark in our Let’s Clean Up Fashion report, which states,

Primark’s pledge to be active in work on the living wage, and its definite improvement on a year ago, is a sign that it is seeking active change. It is good to see that Primark has acknowledged the need not just to emulate others, but to go beyond what they are doing.

It omits the next sentence of the profile, which states,

As it builds its ethical trading programme, we will be watching to see whether it achieves this, and hope that it does not slip into the same tired methods that others follow.

That is of course the function of this online action. In its response, ABF/Primark talks about its engagement with LBL on this issue. At the meetings it mentions, Primark has frequently told us that living wages are a ‘very complicated issue’ and that we should be ‘realistic’. Of course it won’t be solved overnight, but that doesn’t mean that Primark can’t set out, concretely, what it plans to do about it.

Primark’s response tells us a couple of things it is doing now, and reaffirms its aspiration to crack the nut of living wages. But it doesn’t tell us how it plans to get there, or even what steps it will take next. How can we be sure that it will do anything with the figures it gets from the work to define a living wage? The ethical trading strategy that ABF/Primark mentions makes no mention of the living wage at all.

We need to know what Primark will do next, otherwise there is a risk that the current work on defining a living wage, together with those complexities that Primark keeps mentioning, will mean that in spite of all the discussion here in the UK, there is no real change for workers on the ground.

We should end by noting that Primark has done well by writing straight back to supporters and engaging with the issues we raised. The other three retailers to whom the action is directed have yet to do so.

Want to write back? See our letter-writing guide for more advice.

This is Matalan’s response, which dozens of supporters forwarded to us.

So what does it tell us? Well, not much. Matalan reassures us that it cares about ethical sourcing, and talks about factory audits that it conducts. It seems that the ethical parts of its audits are conducted not by ethical specialists, as they are by most companies, but by its sourcing team. There’s a lot of evidence to show that auditing factories well for working conditions is very difficult.

More importantly, though, Matalan doesn’t respond to any of the requests in the postcard:

On wages, it talks only about the legal minimum, not about living wages. There’s a big difference.

Our card made a specific request about freedom of association, which is conspicuous by its absence from Matalan’s code of conduct. Matalan’s letter doesn’t mention this at all.

In general, then, Matalan’s letter indicates that it is, as the headline on our action card said, lagging behind on workers’ rights. It doesn’t engage with these two crucial issues at all. This brings us to the third request in the card, which was for Matalan to join the Ethical Trading Initiative, or another credible multi-stakeholder initiative. That may sound like a lot of jargon, but it essentially means that Matalan should work with other brands and with trade unions and labour rights groups who know what they’re talking about. Because Matalan clearly doesn’t.

Want to write back? See our letter-writing guide for more advice.

One is still a secret (but we’ll tell you all about it later in the year – watch this space!), the other, Play Fair 2008, has already launched. To include a mass SMS action, an e-petition and demonstations and events in countries all over the world, this campaign promises to be even bigger and better than the Play Fair campaign for the Athens Olympics. Of course here in the UK all eyes are on London 2012, and we hope enough of you will be involved to convince the London Organising Committee to take responsibility for workers producing goods with their logo. Their actions so far have been less than convincing…

Of course the forum was above all an opportunity for us all to get together and strengthen our bonds, catch up on information from different countries and think about how we can work together to make a real difference for workers in garment supply chains. But while the meetings were pretty intense, there was also lots of fun to be had. TLC, along with Thai transport and public sector unions, organised a solidarity night at an occupied bus station. We had a huge welcome and spent the evening dancing and singing. Each region had to do a song or two, most of us proving that enthusiasm can just about make of for total lack of talent. There was also a trip to check out Tesco’s in Thailand, a visit to the unionised Triumph factory and a trip to the Export Processing Zone. Most people were pretty tired by the last night, but a few were still u for strutting their stuff at the last night party. It appeared that everyone had disappeared by 11pm although, until a number of people were found several hours later drinking whiskey with the waiters in a cupboard…..

The ongoing legal wrangles over the FFI case slightly overshadowed the event, with three of our number awaiting the decision of the India court over whether to issue international arrest warrents. Still the meeting to discuss how we work together was really well attending, despite it taking place after 8 hours of meeting and we know that actions and work is taking place all over the world to defend the CCC and its partners from such attacks.

For me the main thing I’ll take away (apart from lots more work!) is the overwhelming spirit of solidarity in the room, the feeling that all of us were working together for the same cause; despite differences in language, type of organisation, gender and nationallity we all felt an important part of this movement. And that together we can all make a difference.

The next two years promise to be exciting. We hope you can join us…

From the ICF, Bangkok

November 2, 2007

On October 28, a UK paper, the Observer, published an exposé on child labour in India, revealing that clothes bearing the GapKids label were being made by children as young as 10 years old. The bonded labourers were reportedly working 16 hours a day for no pay in filthy working conditions.

What is Gap saying and doing?

According to Gap, the order was placed by one of its vendors in an unauthorized subcontract facility. When Gap learned of the situation, it stopped the work order and prevented the product from being sold in its stores.

Gap says that the children are now under the care of the local government. It also says that the vendor will be required to provide the displaced child labourers with access to schooling and job training, pay them an ongoing wage and guarantee them jobs as soon as they reach the legal working age. Gap says it will work with the local government and the Global March Against Child Labour to ensure that the vendor fulfills these obligations.

To date, Gap has not confirmed whether the vendor has agreed to take these actions, or what it will do if the vendor fails to do so.

Gap has also called an “urgent meeting” with all of its suppliers in the region to “reinforce [their] policies” prohibiting child labour. Gap says it will “continue to work with the government, NGOs, trade unions, and other stakeholder organizations in an effort to end the use of child labour.”

How did this happen?

With 90 code compliance staff around the world, Gap has made a substantial investment in monitoring labour practices in its global supply chain. In MSN’s experience, Gap is also more willing to respond to reports of worker rights abuses and to engage with unions and NGOs on how to eliminate them than most of its competitors.

So what went wrong?

Although factory monitoring is necessary, it is not sufficient. Audits by compliance staff or commercial auditing firms hired by brand buyers are notoriously ineffective at detecting worker rights abuses or unauthorized subcontracting, and are not designed to uncover the root causes of persistent code and legal violations.

In the current highly competitive free trade environment, Gap and other apparel brands are shifting their orders to countries like India where labour costs are lowest, enforcement of labour laws is weak, and subcontracting to unregulated sewing workshops that exploit children is common.

Constant pressure by the brand buyers on their suppliers to lower their prices, coupled with instability in order volumes, is also encouraging them to take as many orders as are available at any given moment, then subcontract work in order to meet deadlines.

Brand buyers therefore have a responsibility to ensure that their sourcing and purchasing practices don’t encourage sweatshop abuses and child labour.

What should brands like Gap be doing?

To ensure that none of their products are being made in sweatshops or by child and/or bonded labour, Gap and other retailers and brands buying from India need to tackle the underlying causes of these abuses. MSN is therefore calling on Gap and all other brands and retailers whose apparel products are made in India to do the following:

1. Request a joint meeting of the buyers with the Government of India and the appropriate industry associations to discuss their commitment to sourcing from factories that provide decent wages and working conditions, do not use child labour, and do not engage in labour-only subcontracting in order to avoid meeting legal and code of conduct requirements.
2. Make a long-term commitment to suppliers making a serious effort to achieve and maintain compliance with national labour laws and codes of conduct, and offer to pay a preferential price to suppliers that pay a living wage that meets the basic needs of workers and their families, so that their children do not have to work.
3. Work with local trade unions and NGOs in India on ways to effectively identify and eliminate child labour in their Indian supply factories.
4. Take steps to ensure that suppliers respect the rights of all workers to form or join trade unions of their choice and to bargain collectively, and that they adopt a positive approach towards the activities of trade unions and an open attitude towards the organizational activities of workers. (When workers are organized, they are better able to prevent child labour and less afraid to tell the truth about working conditions and labour practices, including whether unauthorized subcontracting is taking place.)
5. Enter into dialogue with the Indian government to convince it that labour rights NGOs are playing a legitimate and necessary role and should not be targeted for doing so.
6. Publicly disclose the names and addresses of all the factories they use in India and other countries, so that these workplaces are under public scrutiny.
7. Commit to ensuring that when children are found making their products, they will have access to quality education until they are no longer children, will be compensated at the legal minimum wage rate during that period, and will be offered decent jobs when they reach the legal minimum age.

Source: http://en.maquilasolidarity.org/en/node/728

What does make it interesting is that in recent years Gap has been steadily building a reputation as one of the most progressive companies when it comes to labour rights, as the Observer notes. This comes despite the apparently irreparable damage done by bad press in the late 1990s, which still sees many good-natured but ill-informed souls boycotting Gap. (I am wearing Gap trousers as I write this, more because they fit me well than for any ethical reason…)

Gap’s groundbreaking ‘warts and all’ social responsibility reporting has won it plaudits where its competitors continue to deny the full scale of the problems in their supply chains; its response to our own Let’s Clean up Fashion investigation was one of the better ones we received; it has some progressive collaborative work with the International Textile, Garment and Leather Workers’ Federation and with Women Working Worldwide.

So what does this teach us?

First, it demonstrates once again that no company is doing enough to address the deep-rooted exploitation on which it relies to produce fashion at high-street prices.

Second, because poor working conditions exist in all companies’ supply chains, it is not how often a company is linked to them in the press that tells us whether it is ‘ethical’, but how ambitiously it is working to address them.

Third, it shows that, while consumer pressure has done an awful lot to push certain retailers towards a more progressive outlook, there is much for us all still to do.

There is no black and white list of bad and good companies, only shades of (pretty dark) grey.