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How Many Factories Are There Behind Each Zara And H&M We Bought?

2020/7/7 19:46:00 0

Fast Fashion

We live in a fast fashion era. To read this article, how many clothes in the wardrobe come from fast fashion brands such as H&M, Zara, Gap and so on?

Young consumers are obsessed with the latest fashion trends in fashion week, but most of us can not afford the price of designer, so the fast fashion industry has sprung up.

Every year, the products of the fashion industry with 52 micro seasons are constantly emerging. The fast fashion giant H&M and Forever 21 receive new clothing delivery every day, Topshop offers 400 new styles every week, and Zara releases 20000 designs every year.

These loud brands become the most popular choice. They are quick to produce fashionable and inexpensive clothing in an economical and efficient way to respond to changing consumer tastes.

And behind the glory? Who is making your clothes?

Where are the workers who are producing these clothes? How are they going? What are they going through? These problems that deserve attention are often hidden from the public view.

Has been exploited and dismissed at any time.

The fast fashion industry chain is extremely complex, connecting many countries in the world. These sales brands based on developed countries or high-income areas such as Britain and the United States outsource production to the first tier supplier companies in developing countries. They are then subcontracted to other two or three or four level manufacturing companies or suppliers.

Because the industry chain is too long, those suppliers who actually produce products can not get the formal authorization of fast fashion brands. That is to say, the brand does not undertake any legal obligation to ensure the decent working conditions of the workers at the bottom of the downstream factories.

These downstream suppliers often come from developing countries such as India, Bangladesh, Burma, Vietnam, Kampuchea and Malaysia, and are mostly in South Asia and Southeast Asia.

The advantages of fast fashion brands are that they are large in base, low in labor cost, cheap in rent, strong in production capacity, weak in policy and social support, and weak in protecting local people's rights. (formerly the world's leading producer of China, the labor intensive industries have gradually shifted to cheaper countries because of the rising labor costs in recent years. )

The local government often provides them with huge tax incentives because the garment industry is almost the backbone of some of its economies. Bangladesh has about 4 million 100 thousand people working in garment factories. It is the world's second largest garment exporter after China, and garment industry accounts for 80% of the country's export revenue.

However, how the garment workers are doing is often not considered by the national government of fast fashion brands, upstream enterprises and garment factories.

In terms of wages, the fashion industry in business logic often tries to increase profits by reducing production spending, and workers' income is the first victim.

"We don't know what they (suppliers) can do to give us the lowest price, but I think they get the lowest salary for their employees," said Amante fashion designer, who did not want to be named.

To keep up with the fast fashion demand for the new trend, the bottom workers in the global production network have become victims of high production targets.

WAR ON WANT published in the 2010 report "acceptance of freedom" shows that the clothing industry in India is deeply dependent on the "sweatshop" mode of production and development. The monthly salary of factory helpers is 60, less than half of the national average wage in India.

Take the production of women's shirts for example, the production target is 20 pieces per hour. For this reason, some factory workers even work overtime 140 hours a day until 2 o'clock in the morning. Even under such circumstances, 60% of India's workers are still unable to achieve their production targets.

Overburdened workers are often subjected to overtime or unpaid squeezing, legal lunch breaks are taken up, and time for going to the bathroom or drinking water is calculated.

A worker at the H&M supplier factory explained: "we are not allowed to go to the toilet because the production target is too high. If I go to the toilet, who will do the work? Who will accomplish the goal? If I come back from the toilet too long, the supervisor will take away my machine coil. I had to go to him and tell him why I spent so much time in the toilet.

These sub contractors are not registered without authorization, and the factory operation is not regulated by the government. The working environment of the subcontractors is very bad. They are exposed to toxic chemicals at work, which range from skin irritation, rash or respiratory problems to more severe cancers, and may even lead to death.

But here, no one cares about their lives. In the unequal power relations between factories, they are just machines, just a number.

When they fail to achieve this target, workers will suffer from the wanton body, language and sexual violence punishment of the power controllers, and live in fear all day long.

Ohmar Myint, a 34 year old sewing machine operator at Myan Mode of Zara plant in Yangon, capital of Burma, was sacked at the end of March. She told BuzzFeedNews reporters:

"Factory owners have absolute power, and no matter how much they exploit us, we can not negotiate with them on an equal footing. It seems that if we take a day off, they will lose money. In the days when we finished our work earlier, we could not leave the factory. We were given another task, one after another. Endless. "

At the end of the day, she felt like a battery exhausted machine.

Unknown secret in factories: sexual abuse

Most of the garment manufacturers in fast fashion suppliers are women. Bangladesh, for example, accounts for 85% of the total. Kampuchea, Indonesia and Sri Lanka are also very close to this figure.

The problem of sexual harassment and sexual abuse in factories is directly linked to the difficult production targets, but in essence, it stems from the hierarchical structure of power in the factory based on gender culture - management positions are dominated by men, while women are usually machine operators and inspectors.

Male dominated management controls the majority of women's workforce, creating a frightening working atmosphere through surveillance, exploitation and abuse, making it more difficult for female workers to report abuse incidents voluntarily.

The WAR ON WANT website released in 2011, "the clothing industry is in a predicament" report shows that after one to one conversation, 3/4 of Bangladesh women's clothing workers were orally mistreated at work, such as being abused "prostitutes" and "sluts" and half of them were beaten.

The reason why maltreatment is difficult to solve is still the secret code of conduct in the garment industry.

In a 2018 report on the exploitation of Asian female garment workers by GLJ, a global labor judiciary (referred to as the GLJ), a woman explained: "once the workers complain, she is blacklisted, and she will not be able to find a job in any factory."

In other words, if the abuse is reported, the threat of employer retaliation can go far beyond the employee's workplace.

In addition, the problem of inequality between men and women in these underdeveloped areas has always existed. Take Ohmar Myint as an example. In an interview, she admitted that after the shift, she still needed to go back to the ragged family to do housework, bring the groceries home and cook for her family. She only has five hours of working hours a day, and these hours are left to sleep.

Fast fashion is intensifying global warming.

The degree and scope of environmental pollution caused by fast fashion is second only to the petroleum industry.

In terms of carbon emissions, the largest fast fashion suppliers in India and Bangladesh are also the largest users of fossil fuels. Suppliers rely on fossil fuels such as coal to produce energy that supplies the entire sweatshop and exacerbate global warming.

A large number of garments produced by factories are sent to retailers around the world through trains or container ships, and by railway or truck to complete the closed-loop production chain. The carbon footprint of a T-shirt is estimated at 15 kilograms. This means that the carbon footprint of T-shirts is about 20 times that of their T-shirts.

Water pollution is also a part to be reckoned with. Fast fashion has caused worldwide pollution of freshwater systems, especially in Asia where downstream suppliers are located.

Nearly 40% of our clothes are cotton, the most commonly used natural fiber in the world. It takes about more than 20000 liters of water to produce 1 kilograms of cotton, and it only produces a T-shirt and a pair of jeans.

The conversion of raw materials into clothing requires up to 8000 different synthetic chemicals, including a series of dyeing processes. These dyes containing harmful substances infiltrate into the soil along the drainage pipeline and flow into the river.

Fast fashion focuses on quantity rather than quality. Clothes are often washed once, and they are thrown away in a season. As demand for fast fashion increases, so does landfill.

Of the 80 billion garments produced annually in the world, three of the four garments made of non biodegradable materials will eventually be disposed of by landfills, and only a small part of them will be recycled. The soil pollution caused by it is a loss to the whole mankind as a whole.

The epidemic sounded the alarm of life and death for garment workers.

With the outbreak of the epidemic worldwide, people are segregated at home, and the demand for clothing has collapsed. In Britain, for example, the clothing purchased by the British in March was 35% less than that of the previous month.

All along, the usual practice of brand in the industry is to pay after the product is shipped. Therefore, when the order is suspended or cancelled, payment will be suspended or canceled.

Under the outbreak of the crisis, fast fashion brands and retailers are rushing to reduce their losses to the lowest level. Under the conduction of the supply chain, they transfer their financial burden to the bottom of the supply chain, the most vulnerable labor group.

Nearly 60% of the 316 factories surveyed by the global centre for workers' rights and the workers' Rights Association, a labour rights organization based in Washington, D.C., surveyed in from March 21st to 25th, said that most of the production facilities had been closed, and nearly 46% of factories said they had lost a large part of their orders.

By the year July 2nd, Bangladesh's clothing exports had dropped by 18.45%, the biggest decline in Bangladesh's clothing export sector.

Due to the cancellation of orders, many suppliers had to reduce operations or complete outage, resulting in a large number of workers being forced to lay off. According to the business and Human Resources Center (BHRRC), the livelihoods of some 60 million low paid workers (mainly female workers) are threatened worldwide.

In Bangladesh alone, Brand Company cancelled about $3 billion 500 million in orders, which has resulted in over 1 million workers losing their jobs, accounting for 1/4 of the total number of clothing producers in the country. Worse still, more than 70% of those laid off are unpaid home. This is equivalent to pushing the poor workers at the bottom of the economy into a desperate situation.

In Nepal, more than 56% of the Nepalese families live on regular remittances of male labor in the field. However, the large number of unemployment caused by the epidemic and the paralysis of the global economy have led them to be unable to send money home. Many families are on the brink of collapse, and can only choose to eat less to save sales.

Sheba Carla Lib, a 25 year old housewife, said, "I haven't had dinner for several days, and I have to give it to my 5 year old daughter," Shiba Kala Limbu. She said that after her husband stopped remitting money, she would not be able to continue paying the rent, and was confused about what to do next.

In addition to cancelling orders, some brands also refuse to pay the cost of raw materials purchased by suppliers, discount the goods they have shipped, or postpone payment. No doubt it is worse.

Uddin, the president of the clothing company, said angrily, "we are an export company, and only after the export is completed can we make profits." Uddin If we do not export, we will not get the money, and the life of my workers will be threatened. We don't want charity. "

For deferred payment brands, suppliers have to store large quantities of ready-made clothes and passively wait for payment until the brand decides whether to accept them. Many retailers extend the payment period to 120 days, which also brings great pressure to suppliers. The backlog of stocks will also cause factory owners to worry about the increase in fire risk, which is devastating for factories.

Under such circumstances, there are still some garment factories continuing to produce. However, workers reported that they were forced to work without adequate preventive measures to increase the risk of infection in their families and communities.

The relevant social organizations representing garment workers are calling on brands and manufacturers to implement necessary worker health protection and rights measures during the crisis so as to prevent workplace exposure to Covid-19 and provide paid sick leave and other employment benefits.

"This is a disaster. We really will die." It is the inner portrayal of almost every garment worker.

Despite the fact that some voluntary unions and non-governmental organizations have been fighting for their interests and assistance, individual brands have set an example, but the environment is still bad.

Clean Clothes Campaign's "real time Blogs: how coronavirus affects garment workers in the supply chain" has been continuously collecting daily reports on vulnerable segments of the world. Their situation is very poor. Infection, unemployment and protest march are still appearing frequently in recent days.

On the one hand, the existence of fast fashion clothing industry is very important for people living in these developing countries. This may be their main source of income. On the other hand, effective measures such as labor protection regulations absent in manufacturing industry have brought more hardships and poverty to workers.

We do not want to completely prohibit the fast fashion industry, but we still hope that more governments and more people will pay attention to the vulnerable groups of workers, supervise the social responsibility of the relevant international brands to undertake the protection of labor rights and interests, and reduce environmental pollution and achieve green production. After all, the power to change the world comes from you and me, and everyone in this world.


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