Labour Behind The Label

A recent investigation by The Independent reveals workers at nine Indonesian factories contracted to produce Olympic shoes and clothing for Adidas are working up to 65-hour weeks and earning as little as 34p an hour.

To learn more about sweatshops in the garment industry, students can stage their own one-day sweatshop for charity, living through the experience of working in an exploitative garment factory in their own school, just for one day.

The students plan and lead their own project, deciding how to stage the one-day event, what product to manufacture, what rules to abide by (for example, 'no talking', 'no toilet breaks', which is common in the sweatshop world), and how to sell the product they have produced afterwards. All profits from this event go to Labour Behind the Label to support garment workers' struggles for better working conditions in the real world.

Extract from The Independent, By Martin Hickman, 8.11.10

Clothing on sale in the high street is being made in Britain in dirty, dangerous and “appalling” conditions, according to secret television footage which will intensify pressure on a fashion industry hit by a series of sweatshop scandals.