Cameron Walker

So it turns out the new hoodie that was going to make you feel good and like you fit in (finally) for just the small price of $149.95 was actually made by an under-paid, over-worked young woman in Asia. Yeah. Still feeling good?

In the 1980’s and 1990’s U.S. and European clothing corporations closed down factories at home so they could focus on building their brand names. Companies like Dickies, Adidas, Gap, Nike and Converse (now owned by Nike) searched the world for the cheapest contractors to produce their gear.

Unfortunately for the workers, the cheapest contractors were often so well-priced because their workers were paid terrible wages and had to put up with appalling working conditions.
Meanwhile, the governments of some developing nations, such as Mexico, Indonesia, El Salvador, the Philippines, Thailand and China, set up large factory areas — as big as whole suburbs — known as Export Processing Zones (EPZs) to attract investment from corporations like Nike and Dickies.

EPZs are dedicated to making goods for the Western market. The corporations who use EPZs are not required to pay tax, so public services normally funded by taxes are often unavailable. So no public transport or street lights, for example.

NO smiling
Unions — the organisations which make sure workers are getting what they’re entitled to — have fewer rights and almost no bargaining power, shifts are long and wages are usually not enough to buy basic necessities.

Workers at a factory in the Philippines, which made GAP, Old Navy and Guess gear, told journalist Naomi Klein that sometimes they had to resort to urinating in plastic bags under their desks because they were not given toilet breaks.

In one Filipino factory there is a rule against smiling. In a certain factory in an Indonesian EPZ, which produces GAP and Nike clothing, workers have to do long shifts — 36 hours without going home!

In the Maquiladoras of El Salvador workers are paid $151 US a month, but the price of basic food (rice, beans, corn) for two to three people costs $250 a month. If you add the price of power bills, water and education for the workers’ children it costs at least $550 a month to live. It’s not hard to see that some are going without. Meanwhile, at a local shop I found Dickies Double Knee Workpants, made in Maquiladoras, for $115.

Go on, be ethical
No Sweat Apparel and other fair trade producers are getting more popular as people become aware of the exploitation used to make some of their favourite clothes.

Fair Trade and No Sweat
Under fair trade, workers are paid a decent wage, the environment is not exploitative and conditions are checked by the International Fair Trade Association (IFAT).
No Sweat Apparel, the ones who have just released those awesome new shoes (pictured), use an Indonesian factory where workers are unionised, paid 25 percent more than the regional minimum wage, and receive a rice allowance and health insurance that covers them and their family members.

You can get No Sweat sneakers from Trade Aid stores around New Zealand, and you can hunt around on the net for other fair trade producers.

nosweatapparel
ethicalconsumer

Buy NZ Made
Because New Zealand’s got pretty tough worker safety and rights laws, you’re almost guaranteed New Zealand-made clothing is made ethically.
Be careful though, because more and more NZ-owned companies are outsourcing their work to Asia and the Pacific. So even if they’re a New Zealand label, they might still be using the same sweatshop labour as everyone else.

Do your own research
We’d like to give you a list of your favourite labels and rate them according to how ethically or unethically their stuff’s made. Unfortunately, it’s not that easy. Big labels are usually part of a greater clothing and apparel group named something completely unrelated. They contract out their work to people in far-flung nations who then contract equally anonymous sweatshops. They don’t want to make it easy for you to find out. The best you can do is research. There are reports scattered around the net on particular clothing labels, so have a hunt around.

Tell the companies
Let the labels know there is a demand out there for ethically made clothing — write a letter or email to the company asking about their practices, or ask a shop assistant if it’s made ethically. This kind of pressure can do more than you think. Nike, for instance, as a direct result of public pressure to clean up their practices in Vietnam, made an effort to improve conditions in their Vietnam factories.

This article was written as part of the Global Focus a collaborative project of Tearaway Magazine and the Global Education Centre. It was first published in Tearaway magazine and is reprinted here with their permission

Illustrator: Rebecca Ter Borg