Labour Behind The Label

LBL's new Killer Jeans report reveals the shame of the denim industry and its potentially deadly dangers to workers' health.

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.

Asda has its sights trained on becoming Britain’s number one cheap fashion retailer. But while the company tries leaping ahead of its rivals on the high street, it’s falling behind in its efforts to improve conditions for women workers in poor countries, whose wages are keeping them trapped in poverty.

Addressing a company's purchasing practices is a key issue, an area where huge changes are recommended by the Clean Clothes Campaign (CCC).  This report by CCC covers working conditions within factories supplying the top 5 global retailers: Tesco, Walmart (Asda), Lidl, Aldi, Carrefour and the lack of sufficient action to address them.

"The retailers and their suppliers are playing an elaborate game.  They only want to reassure consumers, not to improve conditions" - Dr Liu Kaiman, Institute of Contemporary Observation, Shenzen