Fashion Industry Giants and their failure to fix labor exploitation

“For many years, Dior, Saint Laurent, and other fashion houses have secretly used embroiderers for their wares, relying on their expertise while providing little in the way of job security.”

There is a simple but unavoidable truth beneath the glitterous face of the fashion industry giants: exploitation of textile labourers. During the Covid-19 pandemic, big market players like Nike, and TJX saw their stock values rise by up to 11%, on the other hand, textile workers in the developing nations saw an average 21% decrease over the same time period. It becomes blatantly obvious that textile laborers are being exploited in this developing world in order to make that t-shirt you just bought $.10 cheaper to produce. It is a shame that the consumers choose to turn a blind eye to these questionable labour practices as long as they continue to purchase their products. This situation right here is a human rights catastrophe. 

According to Penelope Kyritsis, director of research at the Worker Rights Consortium, “labour abuse is baked into the supply-chain model championed by garment companies.” And a recent report found luxury brands are amongst the worst offenders. Workers’ rights advocates have warned that the global fashion and retail industry’s reliance on outsourcing and intricate, globalised supply chains for producing quick-turnaround goods at low cost has allowed forced labour to flourish. They claim that major fashion brands profiting from the model seem reluctance to change. The group also found that the biggest luxury brands in the world are among the worst offenders when it comes to tackling the worst types of exploitation in their supply chains, with an average score of 31 out of 100. 

French luxury goods company Kering (owner of Alexander McQueen and labels like Gucci) scored 41 out of 100, while LVMH, the owner of brands like Christian Dior and Louis Vuitton, got 19 out of 100. Prada, the Italian luxury fashion house, scored a dismal 5 out of 100 on KnowTheChain’s benchmark, and its rating has gotten worse over time. While these findings are striking but they aren’t surprising to the workers’ rights advocates. 

Two years before, individual working in garment factories in Bangladesh that supply prominent global brands made headlines after clashing with police in a weeks-long strike over low wages. The news came shortly after workers at Topshop’s Leeds distribution centre walked out of work in protest of the “meagre wages and exploitative contracts” used by the British fast fashion giant, and about six months after 500 garment workers in Myanmar participated in a massive strike demanding that their employers observe Thingyan, one of the biggest and most widely observed holidays in the country.

Labour unrest has reached the top of the fashion hierarchy too. In March 2018, workers walked off the job at a handbag factory in Guangzhou’s Panyu district that made bags for Michael Kors, Coach, Marc Jacobs and other labels, according to China Labor Watch. The South Korean-owned supplier was accused of short-changing staff on pension and housing fund contributions and other benefits required under local rules, and the strikers asked for a guaranteed base wage of 3,500 yuan (roughly US$550) a month during slow production periods. The stoppage ended after eight days when an agreement was signed with the workers.

That same month in South Korea, more than 1,000 cosmetics sales staff at Chanel Korea and ELCA Korea, organised by the Korean Federation of Service Workers’ Unions, launched a strike over shifts of around 12 hours a day, low wages and too few days off. Their point was simple: behind the glamour of department store beauty counters, the people selling luxury cosmetics were working punishing hours for little pay.

Meanwhile, adidas, H&M, Gap Inc. and Lacoste were among the companies named in a 2020 Australian Strategic Policy Institute report as potentially benefiting, directly or indirectly, from Uyghur labour transfer programmes, amid wider allegations that Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities held in mass detention facilities in China are abused and forced to work. In July 2020, a coalition of more than 180 Uyghur rights groups, civil society organisations and unions estimated that roughly one in every five cotton garments sold worldwide contains cotton or yarn from the Uyghur Region. In the coalition’s view, practically the whole apparel industry, luxury and high fashion labels among them, is tainted by Uyghur forced labour.

With labour exploitation still widespread across the fashion industry worldwide, these cases leave one obvious question: why do the biggest fashion companies keep failing to put their houses in order?

The current legal system makes it difficult for companies to contribute to the solution, even when customers, investors, the media, and their employees repeatedly demand it. One of the greatest issues is that businesses need to have more control over their supply chains if they want to end labour exploitation. However, companies run the danger of tremendous legal liabilities if they exert more control over their supply chains.

Real change in fashion will require the countries where these companies are based to rethink their legal frameworks: Spain, where Zara’s parent Inditex has its headquarters; Sweden, home of H&M; and France, base of most labels in the LVMH and Kering stables. In particular, liability rules need to be reformed so that companies are encouraged to engage directly with labour issues in their supply chains.

Know and show’ supply chains

More generally, organisations in the sector must be able to “know and disclose” their supply chains, according to Weber. To do this, they must map out their supply chains and publish the identities of all of the suppliers they are collaborating with.

Unhealthy working conditions thrive in nations with lax labour laws and enforcement, but many fashion brands with headquarters in Europe and the US continue to attempt to disavow liability for what occurs further down their supply chain, according to Chloe Cranston, business and human rights manager at Anti-Slavery International, who spoke to Al Jazeera.

Cranston used the example of commodities produced in China’s Xinjiang province utilising forced labour from the Uighur Muslim minority.

A recent Amnesty International study included first-person testimony and detailed the widespread detention and systematic torture of Uighur Muslims residing in China. Some of the allegations include Uighurs being “compelled to live and work in a factory” and forced labour.

Through the purchasing of yarn or cotton, for instance, “almost the entire fashion business is implicated in Uighur forced labour,” Cranston claimed.

The fashion sector still has a long way to go to guarantee it is not complicit in the crimes against humanity suffered by Uighurs, despite some progress being made in this area over the past year, according to Cranston.

She emphasised that since fashion and retail companies wield significant corporate clout, it is their duty to make sure that their interactions with vendors, labour unions, and other stakeholders promote fair working conditions for all parties involved in their supply chains, from those who gather raw materials like cotton to those who spin them into fabric in factories.

Consumers shouldn’t have to exert extra effort to ensure that their purchases are free from slavery, according to Cranston.

What will it take to create change?

This leaves brands caught in a Catch-22. Under the current rules, a brand is seldom held responsible when a supplier or subsidiary further down its chain breaks the law, which gives brands a reason to keep their distance. From the brand’s point of view, the problem is that taking firm control of its supply chain risks stripping away the legal shield it currently enjoys, and that holds whether the control serves the brand’s own ends (a more efficient supply chain) or the aims of campaigners (fairer labour practices).

Following the 2013 Rana Plaza tragedy, numerous European businesses signed a safety agreement designed to shield Bangladeshi workers from hazardous working conditions, which led to the resolution of this conundrum. A few Australian and American fashion companies baulked at signing the agreement due to concerns about potential future liabilities.

We must first acknowledge the complicated environment in which brands operate in order to persuade them to improve their supply chains and put an end to worker abuse. In the current climate, it is frequently safer for brands to stay out of labour disputes and to cover up behind “monitoring” and “audits” conducted by third parties. However, in order to make real change, we must figure out how to turn what are currently dangers of action into incentives for change.