Can technology help connect with garment workers or does legitimate fear make plausibility of participation questionable? Photograph: A.M. Ahad/AP
In a post-Rana Plaza world, one can only wonder how best to gauge the ethics and worker safety behind our garment-manufacturing industry. The goliath that the fashion industry has become begs the question whether it's even possible to ensure suppliers do the right thing.
Many of the Rana Plaza workers feared they would lose their jobs if they didn't go to work at the unsafe factory building. This idea of relying on poorly paid workers, who risk death to be paid little more than minimum wage, brings up the elephant in the room: when people need to survive, they'll do whatever they have to do.
Online auditing tools such as Intertek's Tradegood flips the tables a bit and provides buyers with access to comprehensive information about participating suppliers, including company profiles, quality compliance and reputational risk issues associated with social, environmental and security programmes.
Some companies such as M&S and Patagonia are willing to try supply chain tools, such as non-profit social enterprise Labor Link, designed to help give typically under-represented garment workers a voice. According to M&S, Labor Link leverages "4.5bn mobile subscriptions in the developing world to connect the workers that produce our food, clothing, and electronics with the companies that buy them."
M&S has announced it will use Labor Link's mobile technology to gather feedback directly from 22,500 workers in its clothing supply chains in India, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh as part of a new deal it has signed with Good World Solutions a social enterprise technology provider. Four surveys are planned a year with no cost to workers using the technology, and a minimal cost for Marks & Spencer suppliers to receive the summary data.
Fiona Sadler, head of ethical sourcing at M&S, said: "This is a breakthrough for us and moves workplace communication into the digital era. It's not about checking up on our suppliers; it's about making sure we're doing the right things for the workers in our supply chain and giving them a voice."
According to Ineke Zeldenrust, international co-ordinator for the Clean Clothes Campaign, which focuses on improving working conditions and supporting the empowerment of garment workers, tools such as Labor Link are worthwhile when used in collaboration with credible groups who can ensure workers have an individual voice.
The Clean Clothes Campaign relies more on grassroots advocacy to petition and force the hands of companies to sign legally binding contracts for worker's rights. With an alliance of organisations in 15 European countries, including trade unions and NGOs, the Clean Clothes Campaign is a force to be reckoned with.
"We would ask if these initiatives are developed by the companies alone or together with credible local labour groups and trade unions, as they are the ones directly in touch with the workers or representing them and need to be part of such programmes to make sure they work," says Zeldenrust.
In addition to creating binding contracts like the Bangladesh Safety Accord, Zeldenrust says workers should also have the right to freely organise themselves into democratic trade unions. "Brands should make every effort to ensure that governments in countries where they operate end repression and reform their laws and, of course, ensure that within their own supply chains, the right to organise and to bargain are protected," says Zeldenrust.
Anthony Lilore, a design and production process consultant in Manhattan, serves on the board of Save the Garment Center, a campaign to keep New York as the fashion capital of the world. Lilore is concerned that the likelihood of workers using the technology to better their lives is questionable and many maybe too afraid of reprisals to use it. Although companies are starting to take the issue seriously: "Fortunately, fear and embarrassment as they relate to impact on the bottom line at the corporate level are good motivators, so some companies will work toward doing the right thing. Any effort is better than no effort regardless of motive," says Lilore.
Lilore says when it comes to something grassroots like unionised shops, it's a very delicate matter as "self-policing" is a double-edged sword. He says that although he believes unions can work with small-scale designers who are aware of their supply chains, working with more mainstream brands with larger supply chains, has become too multi-faceted and branched for any one union to handle.
Erica Wolf, director of special projects for Nanette Lepore, says she agrees with Lilore in principle: "Anything with anonymity will work better than anything with transparency in terms of who is providing the data and making any complaints.
"It's a good thing that these issues are even being addressed and I think the 'perfect' solution will take years to come."
With yet another garment factory fire on Tuesday night, killing at least 10 people inside the Aswad Composite Mills factory in Gazipur, 25 miles from Dhaka - any gains that can be made with supply chain checks are worth it.
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