Exploitative Production...
with a Deadly Sting in its Tail

News that the Topshop chain has been lambasted for failing to ensure that its overseas suppliers are treating their garment manufacturing workers fairly made the headlines in August. The group is now investigating all of its overseas suppliers to ensure that the pledges made are being honoured. However it isn’t always the retailer or the importer at fault.
Whilst checks are undertaken by retail buyers and “binding” contracts are entered into, there is little to stop unscrupulous manufacturers from subcontracting to unregulated workshops or from presenting a pristine, well equipped factory full of smiling workers when inspectors make their “surprise” call. Bribery and corruption is rife. Tips offs from airport immigration staff, hotel managers, taxi drivers about business visitor arrivals are commonplace with many on retainers for providing such information to the factory owners they are in the pay of. Connect spoke with Karen Mueller who worked until last year as a fashion buyer for a German retail chain and was been based most recently in Mauritius. “Even I was offered bribes to turn a blind eye to the subcontracting of intricate beadwork to sweat shops. Over time I discovered that these places bring over mostly Indian workers who have to work fifteen hour days, seven days a week to earn less than a third of the rate for the work. Pay rates in Mauritius are low to start with compared to the West but the local workers were very well off when compared to the Indian workers,” she said. “The real problem is the absolute greed of the manufacturers who will go to any lengths to squeeze more money from their contracts. It is they, living in their guarded mansions with their limousines and massive wealth who should be exposed. Many of the buyers may suspect malpractice but cannot prove it and if they are suspected of knowing more than they should or ask too many questions they are usually bought or warned off. It is even worse in India itself and in China where human life has no value whatsoever when it comes to a privileged few amassing great wealth with the help of those they can bribe and corrupt. There is no one you can definitely trust to report these cases to. There have been threats, “accidents” and all sorts of pressure put on those who dare to question how local business runs in these places.” Karen left her job to return to Germany where she is now establishing her own retail store specialising in fairly traded fashion products. “A single buyer cannot hope to change the world but what we can do as individuals is choose not to give our custom to those we feel uneasy about. I reached the point where I couldn’t watch all this wealth being flashed around when there were hard working people just around the corner who were living like prisoners might have done in mediaeval times.”
Where a manufacturer can cut corners and deceive its overseas buyers it seems there is nothing to stop it from happening. The solution can only come from the end consumer refusing to buy anything that has been produced by a nation which allows workers to be exploited.
The latest national media reports state that the average British family is “shopped out” having stockpiled more cheap bargain clothes that they can ever hope to wear and that prices are headed upwards to better refl ect the cost of production. This along with less disposable income in the UK thanks to interest rate rises may well spell the end of the spending orgy. Add to this news of the Chinese sweatshops which, not content with paying their workers pitifully low wages to work in horrendous conditions, have also been found to be less than honest when it comes to the components used in the manufacture of trusted brand name toys and jewellery – then I think we safely say that the Chinese may have scored a home goal too many.
What value the brand now for Mattel as it recalls millions of toys containing deadly levels of lead ? With 80 per cent of all toys now imported from China there is expected to be a major shortage of them this Christmas. What a fantastic excuse not to spend pornographic sums of money of rubbish when we know that the high retail prices we are expected to pay cost mere pennies at the factory gate they came from.
“This has been waiting to happen,” said Karen. “The Chinese have the lion’s share of the world’s toy business and having won that now want more profits from it. They see the massive margins that the brand owner makes and the retail prices these products sell for in Europe and the USA and want more. If the only easy way to get more is to substitute inferior materials or subcontract to unscrupulous factories then that is what they will do. Or they will flood the market with products they will pass off as genuine originals and get their share that way. It is though as much the fault of buyers squeezing the prices down as it is the manufacturers.”
Children’s jewellery from China has also been under the spotlight as lines have been found to contain massive, lethal amounts of lead in them. Affected products have been withdrawn from Hamley’s London toy store and Monsoon’s Accesorize chain of shops.

Where do we go from here?
Insist on buying products that are manufactured or crafted in the UK.
Buy less and value what you buy more.
Seek out Fair Trade products wherever you can.