Fashion brands must end exploitation in supply chains and offer fair salaries and working conditions, say industry experts.
Women wearing face masks work at Liz Fashion Industry Limited, a garment manufacturer, in Gazipur on the outskirts of Dhaka, Bangladesh on Jan. 3, 2021 | Salim/Xinhua News Agency/PA Image
18 January 2021 (openDemocracy) In 2019 the fashion industry generated $2.5trn in global revenues, making it one of the largest industries in the world. But when COVID-19 struck in 2020, it virtually collapsed.
Exports of raw materials from China began to slow in January last year, and subsequent lockdowns around the world meant shoppers stayed at home, retailers shuttered stores, and billions of dollars of orders were cancelled. Thousands of factories faced ruin, and many closed either temporarily or permanently.
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In 2019 the fashion industry generated $2.5trn in global revenues, making it one of the largest industries in the world. But when COVID-19 struck in 2020, it virtually collapsed.
Exports of raw materials from China began to slow in January last year, and subsequent lockdowns around the world meant shoppers stayed at home, retailers shuttered stores, and billions of dollars of orders were cancelled. Thousands of factories faced ruin, and many closed either temporarily or permanently.
In countries such as India, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka, tens of thousands of workers lost their jobs and thousands more were taken ill as COVID-19 spread through cramped production lines. Where people dared to speak up about unsafe or unfair conditions, they were often met with redundancy or brutality.
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SAI AUNG MAIN/AFP/Getty Images
This spring, Marissa Nuncio, director of the Garment Worker Center in Los Angeles, had a Zoom meeting with some of the center’s 300 members. Even during the pandemic, when they were considered essential workers as they made thousands of face masks, the members reported a lack of personal protective equipment, no social distancing, and little disinfection of facilities or even time to wash their hands during long factory shifts. Nuncio searched Etsy for face masks to show workers what the going rate was. “Our members show a lot of resilience through their humor,” Nuncio said. “And they just cracked up laughing $20! $15! They were like, ‘We’re getting paid two cents a mask in our factories.’”
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KANDAL PROVINCE, Cambodia (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - Lon Vanna has been working around the clock for months but she doesn’t sew clothes anymore - she guards the machines in the abandoned garment factory in Cambodia where she once worked.
Vanna believes the sewing machines are her only hope for saving her home and land, which she put up as collateral for a loan to feed herself and her ailing parents after the new coronavirus pandemic shuttered the factory in March.
“Those machines are my money; they are my life,” Vanna said, pledging to hold them hostage until she receives about $2,000 in wages and bonuses owed since bosses shut the factory, some 50km south of the capital, Phnom Penh, unannounced.
Friday, 18 Dec 2020 08:59 AM MYT
Employees work at a factory supplier in Kandal province, Cambodia, December 12, 2018. Reuters pic
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KANDAL PROVINCE, Dec 18 L on Vanna has been working around the clock for months but she doesn t sew clothes anymore she guards the machines in the abandoned garment factory in Cambodia where she once worked.
Vanna believes the sewing machines are her only hope for saving her home and land, which she put up as collateral for a loan to feed herself and her ailing parents after the new coronavirus pandemic shuttered the factory in March.