WASHINGTON, DC -
November 1 - Recent UK media reports that “Gap Kids” clothes were made by
children as young as 10 years old working 16 hour days in conditions close to
slavery in India are a wake up call for the industry and consumers. The fact
that over a decade of corporate monitoring and factory investigations by one of
the industry leaders in ethical and social responsibility has failed to eradicate
such egregious human rights violations shows that very different measures are
necessary in order to ensure humane conditions for workers who sew Gap
clothing.
Gap’s
announced responses to the revelations made by the British newspaper, The
Observer, are inadequate.
•
Responding by saying that only a “very small portion” of a particular order was
produced by an “unauthorized subcontractor without the company’s knowledge” and
that child labor violations in their supply chain are “extremely rare” obscures
the fact that sweatshop conditions are the norm in the global apparel industry,
including Gap’s supply chain. Substandard working conditions are also the norm
in the
U.S.
apparel industry. Buyer-dominated supply chains have resulted in cheap prices
for consumers, large profits for brands and retail chains, but dismal
conditions for garment workers who absorb the true cost of production.
•
Responding by destroying the clothes so painstakingly made by children so that
they cannot be sold to children in the
United States appears to be a move
designed to protect Gap’s image, and erase the memory of the Indian tragedy.
Instead, the clothing made by these children could be preserved as a
testimonial to the suffering of children in the global economy, a tool of remembrance
and education to prevent repetition of similar tragedies.
•
Responding by reminding their vendors in
India that the Gap really is
serious about child labor may be part of an important educational effort, but
this measure alone is not an adequate response to the tragedy of child abuse in
Gap factories. Gap should be careful not to displace responsibility for
children’s welfare to their production partners, but must take full
responsibility for the wages and working conditions of workers who sew its
clothing.
Faced
with public outcry that Gap Kids clothes are made by kids in bonded labor
conditions, Gap should focus on the source of the problem: its own buying and
sourcing practices, secret factory locations, and workers’ inability to
influence workplace decisions. Instituting more vigilant monitoring practices
is not enough.
The
corporate practice of creating codes of conduct for supplier factories and
monitoring factories’ code compliance emerged in the mid-1990s after a number
of high profile brands, including Gap, were widely scrutinized and criticized
for substandard working conditions in their supply chains. Today, tens of
thousands of social audits are commissioned annually by hundreds of apparel
brands and retailers. Nevertheless, sweatshops and child labor persist.
Companies say they expect more from their suppliers, but they are not willing
to pay for it, and they are not willing to empower workers to monitor their own
conditions.
We
therefore call on Gap to make immediate restitution to the child workers in the
factory in
India
and seriously address the root causes of the problem. As a first step, Gap
should:
•
Set up a fund to provide compensation for the children’s loss of income,
ensuring that families do not plunge any further into poverty and debt, and
that the children can attend school.
As
a second step, Gap should commit to full transparency of its supply chain.
•
Gap should publicly disclose all of its 2,000 suppliers. The Observer
investigation provided a glimpse into one of their contractors, but what are
conditions like in their other factories, spread out over approximately 50
countries around the globe?
Gap
must also make a commitment to implement purchasing practices that result in:
•
Fair Pricing: The prices paid to factories by vendors must be sufficient to
allow them to pay workers a living wage and meet all other code requirements.
•
Sustainable Production Scheduling: Order placement and delivery schedules
should allow for reasonable production scheduling such that factories can
fulfill orders without compelling excessive involuntary overtime.
•
Long-term Commitments: The relationship between vendor and factory must be
stable and long-term. Factories will have little incentive to invest in meeting
code requirements unless vendors are willing to reward compliance with ongoing
business.
Gap
should ensure that workers can participate as full partners in workplace
decisions that affect their lives. Gap should:
•
Enforce its code of conduct in partnership with workers.
•
Require factories to take proactive steps to guarantee workers’ right to
organize without fear of retaliation.
Gap
must, once and for all, close the gap between an image of social responsibility
and true responsibility. Doing so would ensure that workers producing goods for
Gap work under decent conditions. Doing so would also benefit other
stakeholders. For factories, labor rights compliance would be rewarded with
more dependable and less stressful relationships with buyers. For Gap, more
fully compliant factories would mean better quality products and more reliable
and efficient sources of supply. For all of us, consumers and workers alike, a
leading apparel brand becoming truly responsible would be an important step
towards a just and sustainable global economy.
