The search for bodies was called off just over a week ago. There are over 1100 people, mostly women, dead. The eight-storey garment factory collapsed on the 24th April, the owners having apparently already received warnings about the safety of the building. There have been eight arrests, including the factory owner, yet it is unfair to say that there were no other guilty parties in the case.
You might argue that we are not responsible for the working conditions of people so far away. If governments will not reform these systems, or are happy to trade with multinationals on the basis of exploitation, then who are we to get involved? The answer is this: we are responsible because we, ourselves, are the consumer.
What is worse, we are hypocritical consumers. The idea of buying ethically gives us all a little kick when we reach for the “free from animal testing” bath bomb from Lush. But we fail to see the hypocrisies in our own wardrobe. The idea that we source goods fairly all the time is a lie, and the assumption that multinationals will do it for us if we don’t ask is ridiculous.
The fact is we simply know very little about where our garments actually come from. Take a simple test. Look into your wardrobe and pick a random garment, then ask: Where is it from? I took the test, and the following countries came up: China, India, Romania, Vietnam, Bangladesh, Cambodia, Turkey and Egypt.
I am not going to marginalise the above eight countries as users of slave labour. That’s not the point. The point is simply that I don’t know what their policies are. Even more importantly, I don’t know what companies are paying the workers there. In the majority of the clothes I own there is a striking lack of initiative by retailers to inform me of their origins. If I’m a cynic, then surely that’s a stain on my character for not caring to look as much as an indictment on the retailer. Too often we see ourselves as detached from what we buy.
I am not here to preach, or to sit here and call your actions wrong. I am guilty too. The fact is we know little, if anything, about the rather opaque supply chain from which those companies source their clothes. I, like most people, have spent most of my time not looking, or not wanting to look.
We can’t take all of the blame though, for who can actually trace back their whole wardrobe? The nature of multinational retailers selling large numbers of the same product makes it difficult for a customer to trace them back to the original factory. Indeed companies often farm out production to unaccountable third parties. This does not mean, however, that we, the consumer, must stay inactive.
There have been reforms made in light of the disaster in Bangladesh already. The Bangladeshi government have promised to relax trade union laws for garment workers, and have announced a plan to raise the minimum wage. Fashion chains such as Primark and H&M have signed an agreement to help ensure safety in the factories they work with in the country. But does it seem fair that we should just accept these as the only steps of progress? What happened is a culmination of years of neglect and unless further steps are taken it will happen again.
Nobel Peace Prize Winner Muhammad Yunus argued that we should collectively work together to create an international minimum wage. For him, the removal of industries is wrong because “There is no sense in them leaving a country that has benefited a great deal” and “could have continuing rapid … economic and social progress.” He advocates, instead, a further acceleration in reforms to improve pay and working conditions.
What can we, the consumer, do? If we adopt Yunus’ argument, then we need to accelerate ethical buying. We certainly need to be informed. Currently, the majority of us receive information on product history passively. That needs to change. Consumers need to demand a right to know. It is easy to look at a label and see a country, but we really need to know whether the people making these garments are paid fairly, treated respectfully and working in safe conditions. You are responsible too. Its about time you started asking.