Abstract
There’s no excuse for not knowing the working conditions behind a cheap shirt, now that workers can use technology to share details from their factory, says
Yet hoax or not, the initial outcry says it all. In our hyper-connected world, it still seemed plausible that voiceless workers could be smuggling out news of their working conditions, like an SOS.
“Disconnection is the biggest problem. Consumers are disconnected from the origins of the products, and so are the companies,” says Heather Franzese, director and co-founder of Good World Solutions, a company that has been working to bridge the gap by allowing workers to report anonymously on their conditions via their mobile phones.
The company first trialled the platform at a sweater factory in Peru in 2009, using an SMS-based system so users could send text messages about their working life and needs. Later, the platform – named Labour Link – became voice-based, with pre-recorded audio prompts to ensure illiterate users weren’t overlooked. The retailers that sign up then pick up the tab – as they should – so the workers can use the service for free.
Now working in 13 countries, including China and Bangladesh, Good World Solutions has surveyed 125,000 workers in its first four years. It has found workers have had confidence to divulge sensitive information, including cases of sexual harassment and child labour. The company – which has clients that include Marks & Spencer and, since 2013, Primark – has also moved from tailor-making questions to adopting a standardised format, so data can be compared. As a result, instead of just driving down prices and encouraging consumers to take an increasingly throwaway attitude to fashion, companies could also be driving up standards and creating new benchmarks.
Such action would certainly be more admirable than walking away. After a factory that made Disney apparel among other goods burnt down in Bangladesh in 2012, killing 112, the Walt Disney Company put the whole country on its blacklist. Now none of its products can be made there. The factory workers didn’t have an exit; the big company did.
But Franzese says the collapse of the Bangladesh’s Rana Plaza factory, which killed 1,129 garment workers in April 2013 and led to an outcry against foreign brands contracting negligent employers, was a turning point. “We get companies coming to us saying, ‘We want to be more transparent’. Transparency is the future now,” says Franzese. Also, unlike traditional social audits done onsite with a clipboard over a short period, Labour Link’s communication channel can stay open and changes can be monitored over time.
Companies worldwide are also starting to experiment with what has been named “wearable technology”, meaning devices such as glasses, armbands and watches that monitor your movements, heart rate, sleep patterns. ABI Research predicts 90m wearable devices will be shipped this year; most are designed for fashion or fitness, but there is growing interest in their use within the workplace. Further down the line we might see Google Glass, or a cheaper version, on the factory floor, bringing increased transparency, but also concerns over the boundaries in surveillance.
Phoebe Moore, a senior international relations lecturer at the University of Middlesex London, is researching a book about self-tracking and wearable technology. She says: “When companies start comparing your output against your colleagues, this is where the darker side comes in. Then it becomes more explicitly about productivity, rather than workers’ wellbeing. On one side of this debate, you have surveillance and control; on the other, a real potential for work satisfaction and different types of social emancipation.”
In Bangladesh, the Rana Plaza site is sometimes visited by foreign journalists and TV crews, who come to report on the updates. Roni Neaz, a Dhaka-based fixer, often joins them, but remains unconvinced that real change has filtered down. “There have been some infrastructural changes in factories since the tragedy – such as mending stairs and installing fire-safety gear – but people here are sceptical and worried that bribery might have prevented some closures. Also nothing has changed to help workers speak out. If a worker complains, he or she may be fired instantly.” Technology, he feels, could speed things up. “That could be a weapon so the buyers are more responsible, workers have their freedom of expression and, technically, the owners will also be vigilant.”
A few weeks after the Rana Plaza tragedy, Benetton tweeted a quasi-denial that spectacularly missed the point, saying that they had only placed a one-off order with one of the manufacturers on the site and this was completed weeks prior to the accident. Since then an Italian documentary maker claims to have filmed another premises contracted by Benetton with no useable fire-exits. Benetton said it didn’t recognise the building and that it continues to carry out random audits.
Workers have had confidence to divulge sensitive information, including cases of sexual harassment and child labour
When campaigners first started exposing overseas sweatshops in the 1990s, some companies claimed they were shocked, that they struggled to monitor what was going on so far away. Those excuses didn’t stand up then and they certainly don’t now, not when there are so many lowcost ways to stay in touch and so much room for further innovation. As Franzese says: “In this globalised world, there is nowhere to hide.”