Academia.edu no longer supports Internet Explorer.
To browse Academia.edu and the wider internet faster and more securely, please take a few seconds to upgrade your browser.
The 21st century consumers are mindful of problems that impact social and environmental sustainability, fast fashion’s main emphasis is faster turnaround from factories to stay competitive thus some retail companies aren’t paying keen attention on the ethics in apparel production factories (Bhasin, 2014, June 04; Tan, 2016). According to the International Labour Organisation (ILO) forced labor is a worldwide concern affecting 21 million people; simply put there are 3 out of every 1,000 victims who are part of forced labor within Asia-Pacific with 11.7 million and other regions as shown in Appendix A (Mcclelland, 2017). 260 million children partake in employment with an estimate of 170 million children engaged in apparel making; ILO estimated that 6 million children are in forced labor with 14 to 16 working hour days in poor working conditions with reported cases in Bangladesh apparel factories; yarn spinning in India; cotton seeds production in Benin; and harvesting cotton in Uzbekistan (Moulds, 2017; Peiris, 2005). Ashridge Centre for Business and Sustainability, and Ethical Trading Initiative (ETI) confirmed that 71% of companies admitted to cases of modern slavery in their supply chain; with 168 million child labor cases in 2017 and a proven improvement from 246 million cases in 2000 (Mcclelland, 2017). Can apparel suppliers and retailers tackle the unethical practices that are impacting humanity and integrate practices that would ensure social sustainability? The focus of this research was for an opportunity to acquire and understand millennials perspectives on the unethical conduct and fashion industry with relevance to apparel sourcing, manufacturing, industry sustainability. JEL: L60, L67, M14, D29, K20
This article looks at modern forms of bonded and forced labour in the textile and garment sector in Tamil Nadu, India which supplies major retailers and brands in Europe and North America. Many thousands of young women and girls are employed in textile mills and garment factories under inhumane conditions which violate basic their rights. Local and international campaigns have highlighted these abuses and some retailers have developed their own initiatives or joined multilateral initiatives aiming to bring about change. Up to the present, however, only limited improvements have been made owing to a failure to develop collective forms of organisation at the workplace. The International Labour Organisation (ILO) has acknowledged a focus beyond the state, to the private sector as a major contributor to contemporary forms of forced labour. This can be partly attributed to the recognition of the increase in labour exploitation present in global production networks/chains (ILO, 2013). The chapter examines the case of Sumangali-camp workers in the textile garment industry in Tamil Nadu, South India. We explore how key actors, local and international labour rights non-government organisations (NGOs), and a multi stakeholder initiative engage in the issues of bonded and forced labour. Our analysis draws on field research conducted in India between 2011-2014 in the garment sector, as part of a broader research project exploring the effectiveness of non-judical redress mechanisms to human rights grievances. In the case of the garment and textile sector in Tamil Nadu, the power imbalance between the thousands of young women and child workers in garment and textile factories and the employers and global brands is significant. The case explores characteristics of local and international campaign mobilization and the impact on workers' sense of agency. Further we seek to understand the responses by corporations through the multi stakeholder initiative actions on forced labour. The garment industry has existed in this region for many years, and bonded, forced and child labour is not uncommon, particularly in the hand loom and weaving workshops (Carsons & DeNeve, 2013). More recently, the large scale textile mills and garment factories have sought to employ young women and children in line with a change from producing for national markets to an export focus. The feminisation of the workforce has coincided with the emergence of new forms of institutionalised exploitation (Narayanaswamy & Sachithanandam, 2010). The gendered nature of global production remains an important site of investigation; feminist scholars have shown that the feminisation of labour and the demand for cheap and productive labour has not receded (Pearson, 2007; Prieto-Carron, 2008).The global garment industry is notorious for its treatment of women and child workers, and numerous examples could be given of exploitative conditions of employment. Many UK retailers are selling t-shirts, sportswear, children's clothes and nightwear sourced from this region and we question the effectiveness of their corporate social responsibility (CSR) responses to forced labour and other labour exploitation in garment production. The nature of the contemporary global garment production is described here as a network, rather than a linear supply chain (Coe et al, 2008), This raises important questions around the
This paper analyses the trajectory of the campaign for ethical practices in the apparel industry, emphasizing the role of consumers in the process. It is argued here that the complexity and intransparency of supply chains – typical for the apparel industry since the 1970s – has been a major impediment in addressing unethical practices in the industry. The anti-sweatshop movement that emerged in Europe and North America in the 1990s failed, mostly due to its internal inconsistencies, to introduce a strong enough push to force lead firms to reform their sourcing patterns. Unwilling to make significant concessions but increasingly pressured into action, brand owners and mass retailers chose to engage in private, voluntary certification schemes in order to prevent distressing exposés and maintain legitimacy. Majority of the certification schemes adopted in the industry led to only limited improvements, however. It is argued in this paper that a new opportunity window for implementation of ethical practices in the industry has opened recently with the advent of the MFA phase-out and changes in the structure of the industry associated with the 2008 financial crisis. Firms consequently began to experiment with more consolidated sourcing patterns and became therefore more open to the idea of reducing complexity in their supply chains. It is argued here that the move towards more integrated supply chains should be fostered by regulators, and should be accompanied with a push for increased transparency. Increased transparency is crucial as it enables civil society actors to scrutinize sourcing practices more efficiently and consumers to engage in more systematic and meaningful ethical purchasing.
In many parts of the world, homework is a form of labour characterised by precariousness, lack of regulation, and invisibility and lack of protection of the workers who are often amongst the world’s poorest and most exploited. Homework is spreading, due to firm practices such as outsourcing. The analysis and understanding of complex corporate networks may assist with the identification and protection of those most at risk within the supply chain network. It can also expose some of the key ethical issues and dilemmas of supply chain management and corporate social responsibility (CSR). Based on a case-study of the Australian FairWear Campaign (FWC), this article identifies an ethical network that aims to increase corporate accountability (CA) via greater transparency in corporate supply chains and improve work conditions for homeworkers and increase their recognition in the supply chain.
Journal of Fashion Marketing and Management: An International Journal
Re-visiting an old topic with a new approach: the case of ethical clothing2017 •
Purpose A recent study by Reimers et al. (2016) suggests that the attitude-behaviour gap, as it applies to ethical clothing, may be due to academics having defined it differently to the way that consumers do. The purpose of this paper is to serve as a direct follow-up to that study by employing their consumer-based definition in order to help identify the clothing attributes that influence the purchase of ethical clothing. Design/methodology/approach A consumer household sample in combination with a quantitative survey approach was used to collect the data, while structural equation modelling was used to analyse it. Findings In spite of the ethical clothing context, only two of the four ethical clothing dimensions were found to influence consumer attitudes. In contrast, all three conventional dimensions were found to be significant. Originality/value Ethical clothing has typically been operationalised using just two of these four dimensions. Ironically, one of the two dimensions oft...
2019 •
Sustainability is a central challenge of the fashion industry. In an era where Internet and social networks allow information to spread quickly, more consumers are familiar with the call for "ethical fashion" as disasters such as Rana Plaza resound worldwide. However, consumers interested in buying "ethical" clothing could have a hard time orienting themselves amongst the abundance of brands claiming to be ethical on the market. Consumers might make purchasing decisions based on their knowledge of a brand. In this context, it is imaginable that corporate social responsibility (CSR) communications, including codes of ethics, could constitute one way a consumer can learn more about a company's values. These codes may serve a variety of purposes-they are undoubtedly one of the ways a brand communicates its commitment to ethical principles. Indeed, by analyzing the codes of ethics of some of the industry's well-known brands, it is evident that they primarily focus on employment and workers' rights (including equality and discrimination issues), labor safety standards, bribery and anti-corruption, counterfeiting and unfair business practices, as well as respect for (and sometimes improvement of) the environment. A company's code of ethics is also a powerful tool for improving brand image by adopting a code that responds to the issues that consumers care about. It is therefore necessary to distinguish between companies that are truly ethical and those that merely appear so. In order to protect consumer confidence in such documents, a fil rouge across legal systems may be found (although the specific characteristics may vary greatly) in the laws that protect consumers from misleading advertising.
2021 •
THESIS STATEMENT Fashion is powerful; if you do not think it is important, look down at what you are wearing. Every person on this planet wears clothes or adorns their body in some way. 80 billion pieces of clothing are produced in a year (Siegle, 2011); 9.3% of the world’s employees are employed in the fashion industry; totalling 40 million workers and constituting 4% of global exports (Caniato et al 2012: 659; Hurley & Miller 2008) and consumers spent one trillion on clothes in a single year (Allwood et al., 2006 in Obregon 2013). How those clothes are designed, produced, manufactured and distributed has a massive global impact. There are brightly coloured rivers in Asia that correspond to the trendy hues of the upcoming season’s fast-fashion offerings, or look to the collapse of Rana Plaza1 in Bangladesh: the modern incarnation of the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire that claimed ten times as many lives as the original disaster2 Clothing is also not being held onto and valued any...
Markets, Globalization & Development Review: The Official Journal of the International Society of Markets and Development
The Impact of Ethical Concerns on Fashion Consumerism: A ReviewMaterials Chemistry and Physics
Co-continuous morphology and stress relaxation behaviour of unfilled and silica filled PP/EPDM blends2009 •
2019 IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS)
INFER: INtermediate representations for FuturE pRediction2019 •
Methods and Procedures for Building Sustainable Farming Systems
Learning and Experimentation Strategy: Outline of a Method to Develop Sustainable Livestock Production Systems2012 •
1998 •
2020 •
2019 •
Plant Biotechnol Persa
Alzheimer's: Phytotherapy and the most important herbs in the treatment of Alzheimer'sCultures & conflits
« Catégorisations, territoires et individu : quelle place pour le pauvre ? »1999 •
IPTEK Journal of Proceedings Series
Numerical Analysis of Shear Behavior of High-Strength Reinforced Concrete Columns2017 •
Eurasian Business Review
Knowledge inheritance and performance of spinouts2023 •
International Journal of Artificial Intelligence & Applications
Optical Flow Based Analysis of Leukocyte Dynamics in Microcirculation2015 •
Jurnal Respirasi
Tuberculous Meningitis: The Microbiological Laboratory Diagnosis and Its Drug Sensitivity Patterns2019 •
Journal of Veterinary Diagnostic Investigation
An outbreak of Sarcocystis calchasi encephalitis in multiple psittacine species within an enclosed zoological aviary2013 •
DOAJ (DOAJ: Directory of Open Access Journals)
Otolaryngological Presentations in Times of Terror: Profile from a Tertiary Health Center in North-Central Nigeria2017 •
International Journal of Obesity
Potential roles of Helicobacter pylori treatment, body mass index and waist circumference in the causation of erosive esophagitis: a randomized clinical trial (HEROES-GERD)2019 •
Acta Universitatis Carolinae. Philologica
In Memoriam of Daniel Škoviera (30 November 1946–24 February 2021)2022 •
2021 •
Open Access Publishing Group