Conditions worsen in garment jungle
\nThe Age, Australia<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
MOST garment companies, locally and internationally, seem to be clueless about working conditions, and outworkers say things are getting worse.<\/p>\n
A report that the Brotherhood of St Laurence released to coincide with Fashion Week found that outworkers believed conditions had deteriorated.<\/p>\n
Members of one group said they were paid $2.50 for a detailed shirt; members of another group said they were paid $2-$3 an hour. Most indicated they often went weeks without work. When work came, they had to put in long hours.<\/p>\n
The outworkers said a shortage of work had left them with little bargaining power.<\/p>\n
They said conditions had deteriorated from 10 years ago because companies now demanded quicker turnaround.<\/p>\n
However, the companies seemed to be unaware of these issues, or played them down.<\/p>\n
Most company representatives did not identify any poor conditions in their supply chains.<\/p>\n
Of the 23 representatives interviewed, only four expressed concern. Of the rest, 14 thought conditions were good and four said conditions varied.<\/p>\n
That left one company that, with two other business organisations, queried whether conditions were as bad as labour rights organisations had claimed.<\/p>\n
The researchers spoke to 37 organisations, covering 23 companies and 14 other industry players including business organisations, labour rights organisations and government employees. They also interviewed 13 outworkers in two focus groups. Most company representatives had a limited understanding of conditions in their international contracting chains.<\/p>\n
Whatever opinions they had were based on personal opinion and brief factory visits.<\/p>\n
The exceptions were the six large companies that had put formal corporate responsibility processes in place.<\/p>\n
Smaller companies said they could see little benefit from setting up corporate responsibility processes, claiming these were suited only for the big companies and that consumers were indifferent.<\/p>\n
The smaller companies also said financial sustainability was more important than ethical supply, that they lacked resources and had little influence because of their size.<\/p>\n
Respondents from medium-sized companies were inclined to view conditions in their offshore factories as good. But representatives of the large companies were more likely to say conditions were highly variable and that sweatshop conditions existed.<\/p>\n
The report’s co-author, Emer Diviney, said some companies believed there was no business case for ethical supply chains because consumers did not really care. But trends overseas suggested otherwise.<\/p>\n
“If Australia follows trends in Europe, consumers will become more concerned about the social and environmental impact of their purchases,” Ms Diviney said.<\/p>\n
\u00e2\u2013\u00a0To read the report, go to theage.com.au\/businessday<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Conditions worsen in garment jungle The Age, Australia MOST garment companies, locally and internationally, seem to be clueless about working conditions, and outworkers say things are getting worse. A report that the Brotherhood of St Laurence released to coincide with Fashion Week found that outworkers believed conditions had deteriorated. Members of one group said they […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"yoast_head":"\n