Fashion victims
Many clothes buyers still put price before ethics, writes Chloe Winter.
New Zealand’s fashion industry still has a lot of work to do to address worker exploitation in factories, an ethical-fashion advocate says.
Of the 18 New Zealand companies included in this year’s Ethical Fashion Guide, just five got top marks.
Tearfund education and advocacy coordinator
Claire Hart said the median grade was B-, which beat the international average of C +, but there was still room to improve.
While New Zealand companies were a ‘‘little bit ahead of the curve’’ in median grade, they were behind in terms of transparency, she said.
‘‘We are still having the conversations with most companies trying to convince them it’s actually necessary to publish supplier lists,’’ Hart said.
‘‘It’s not that they don’t see it as important, it’s that, historically, the arguments for not publishing is that it is their competitive advantage, and they want to protect that.’’
Many companies were publishing information without detrimental effects, and they were often using the same factories.
The Ethical Fashion Guide attempts to push for greater transparency of supply chains of major brands around the world, and to give consumers a tool to make informed decisions about where they shop.
Although there was a raised awareness about exploitation in the fashion industry, a big shift in consumer behaviour was yet to be seen, Hart said.
‘‘So whilst we might know there’s a problem, and we are aware exploitation can be taking place in the production of our clothing, it hasn’t quite translated into our buying habits.’’
New Zealand’s top performers are Icebreaker (A+), Common Good (A+), Freeset (A+), Kathmandu (A) and Kowtow (A).
K&K, T&T and Trelise Cooper’s refusal to take part in the report and lack of publicly available information resulted in an F rating.
Tearfund chief executive Ian McInnes said he hoped Kiwi consumers would use the power they had by making ethical choices at home.
‘‘Too often we see the end product. We don’t see the exploitation of millions of garment
Trelise Cooper said the F rating was not a measure of her fashion brands, or its ethical standards and behaviour.
‘‘Tearfund demanded an arbitrary, limited timeframe for a very intense and detailed report that we simply could not meet.
‘‘We volunteered to participate instead in the following year which they did not accept.’’
Trelise Cooper Group has developed an ethical code of conduct to ensure workers were not exploited, Cooper said.
‘‘This covers key issues of fair living wages, child labour, hours of work, justice, safety, diversity and we require all employers, our suppliers and manufacturers, to work within the code.
‘‘We work with a small number of reputable factories in New Zealand, China and India, and have had long-held relationships with these factories which we visit on a regular basis.’’
Karen Walker, a New Zealand fashion house which did not take part in the survey, was given a C grade.
Karen Walker told Tearfund it did not participate because it was ‘‘extremely happy with where we’re at in terms of our manufacturing and sourcing’’.
‘‘Our 2018 grade in this survey, compared with 2017’s grade, doesn’t reflect our social responsibility systems and ethical standards or the continued progress we’ve made in the last 12 months, it merely reflects what information we choose to make available on our website,’’ the company said.
Kowtow founder Gosia Piatek said she wanted to create an ethical and sustainable business, with a transparent supply chain.
‘‘I have always cared about processes and people’s emotions and believe we should all be held accountable for the conditions in which our clothes are made.’’
For the past 11 years, Piatek had been able to trace Kowtow’s supply chain ‘‘from seed to garment’’.
‘‘With the growing awareness in the fashion industry around workers’ rights, the sharing of this information can give customers the confidence to shop ethically.’’
The world’s clothing is increasingly being made by 43 million workers in the Asia-Pacific regions, the report says.
‘‘India has the biggest share of these workers at 16.7 million, followed by China (6.2 million), and Bangladesh (4.9 million),’’ the report says.
But China still has the largest share of global clothing exports at
73.2 per cent followed by Bangladesh, Vietnam, and India.
China’s lower number of workers was partly due to a lack of data outside urban centres and the country’s higher rates of productivity.
Production has also moved from China to countries such as Bangladesh, Vietnam and Cambodia where labour was cheaper, the report says.
The global fashion industry is among the most labour-intensive in the world.
But most garment sector workers receive wages well below the amount needed to afford a basic standard of living, the report says.
In Bangladesh, the minimum wage for a garment worker is US$63 (NZ$85) a month.
The Global Alliance for a living wage says a fair living wage would be about US$214 a month in the county’s capital city, Dhaka.
In Vietnam, the minimum wage of US$153 a month is nearly half that of the estimated living wage, according the the Global Alliance.
Only 12 of the 114 companies assessed in the report have developed, or are using, a living wage.
Three of the 12 are New Zealand companies. Two of them are paying a living wage to the workers in final stage and inputs production facilities, the report
‘‘I believe we should all be held accountable for the conditions in which our clothes are made.’’ Kowtow founder Gosia Piatek, left
says. But no company is paying a living wage all the way down the supply chain.
New Zealand’s Kowtow, Icebreaker, Freeset and Common Good scored in the A range for worker empowerment, which takes living wages into consideration.
Hart said it was pleasing to see some New Zealand companies showing consideration for pay rates.
‘‘It’s a step in the right direction, but from this year’s results, it is evident we still have a long way to go before we will see a major shift in the industry take place.’’