Labor Practice Paper

Labor Practices Paper

Victor A. Matias

PHL/320 Critical Thinking and Decisions Making in Business

March 1, 2015

Professor: Aileen Smith

Labor Practices Paper

Recently, a Norwegian media has done a reality show titled 'Sweat Shop' ('Sweatshop'), which shows how three young Norwegians moving to Cambodia to live for a month in the same conditions as the textile workers in this country: 70 hours weekly schedules, poverty wages that barely exceed $ 80 monthly and systems more questionable safety. One of the participants (the blogger Anniken Jørgensen) was so shocked after the experience he decided to launch a campaign to denounce the situation of workers of Cambodian subsidiaries belonging to the multinational H & M. The protest has had such media attention that the Swedish brand has tried to silence a blogger and has requested to meet with her at its headquarters in Stockholm.

It should be recalled that in Cambodia's textile industry represents one of the most important sources of income (13% of GDP in 2012), so that large multinational textiles, aware of their power in that country, take advantage of it to impose their conditions of work, their rules. In 2012, a factory working for Walmart and H & M closed without paying the salary of several months for their workers, and in 2013 Nike decided to lay off 300 Cambodian garment workers for having participated in strikes to demand better working conditions and living wages . What's more, in April of that same year, the building collapsed Rana Plaza, which housed several garment factories in Bangladesh, the lives of 1,138 people dead and caused more than 2,000 injured. For now, the brands involved (including Inditex, El Corte Ingles, Mango and H & M) who pledged to contribute to the compensation fund for victims have not met half of the nearly 40 million needed, as denounced by the Clean Clothes Campaign .

Moreover, child labor continues to be recurrent in the fashion industry. In 2012, a report entitled 'Captured by Cotton' ('you Caught in cotton') described the process of recruitment of thousands of girls and Indian youth by large textile manufacturers in Tamil Nadu which then supply their products to major international firms such as Inditex, El Corte Inglés and Mango. That same year, the television channel France 2 broadcast a report of investigation that uncovered the little existing control over subcontractors by Inditex in New Delhi, accused of child exploitation. Also, last year received a complaint Zara employ labor in slave-like conditions in Buenos Aires.

After all these recent and ongoing scandals that show the cutthroat world of textiles and unscrupulousness of large multinational brands are increasingly emerging projects to propose new ways to produce fashion and promoting sustainable and responsible consumption. In 2011 was born Slow Fashion Spain, the reference platform for sustainable fashion in Spain, which aims to disseminate and promote initiatives and alternative projects to the 'fast fashion' and in 2014 organized the third conference on Sustainable Fashion informative. Also in April this year was held the first Gateway Sustainable Fashion in Barcelona, on the occasion of Fashion Revolution Day (commemorating the tragedy in Bangladesh), which paraded dozens of brands with criteria of ethical and ecological production. Recently created the website Move to Slow Fashion, an online store that brings together dozens of brands that produce sustainably and also promotes the recycling of clothes by a home collection service. There are also numerous shops in which an ethical and sustainable fashion is encouraged, as Greenlife Style, and brands that promote eco-fashion, as Ecoology, and opt for a local production, responsible and quality, as TrendySlang.

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