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This report isn't an 'ethical shopping guide'. The way to help workers is not to boycott one company in favour of another, it's to shift from being a passive consumer to an active one. Each time you buy clothes, get in touch with the company you bought them from, ask them what they are doing about the recommendations in this report. Together, we can - and we will - clean up fashion. |
| Gap | | Print | |
Page 2 of 3 Detail on Workers RightsWagesFor our 2006 report, Gap cited its active involvement in two initiatives: the Joint Initiative on Corporate Accountability and Worker’s Rights (Jo-In) in Turkey, and the MFA Forum, primarily in Bangladesh, both of which are exploring ways of improving workers’ wages. We agreed that, unlike some other brands that have put their names to initiatives such as these, Gap’s participation has been active and it has been leading the sector in developing such collaboration. In 2007, Gap seems still to focus its factory monitoring on implementing minimum wages, admitting that up to a quarter of its suppliers last year failed to meet this target. Its CSR report contains little discussion of living wages, and although it gave us practical examples related to improving wages, they do not extend to defining and implementing the living wage as such. Gap makes two arguments about this: the first is to say that the living wage needs to be addressed by brands collaboratively, a statement that has more credibility coming from Gap than from others, for reasons discussed above. The second is that it has focused its work on purchasing practices – how its own supply chain management impacts on working conditions: We believe that brands and retailers have significant influence over a variety of factors, including unreasonable expectations regarding cost and speed...It continued that. We’re learning that wage issues are directly impacted by how factories and brands manage operations. Our integrated vendor scorecard approach is showing a correlation between producing higher quality goods and on-time delivery with better working conditions. This suggests that better managed factories provide improved working conditions for their workers - including wages.Gap said that it wanted to ensure its sourcing decisions took this into account more. Freedom of AssociationGap was unique in 2006 in the breadth and depth of its involvement with trade unions. As Gap said at the time, “[w]e believe that a strong system of industrial relations can have a positive impact on both productivity and wages in the factory.” As well as a few concrete examples of worker training in particular countries, Gap has embarked on a global and national collaboration with trade unions through the International Textile, Garment and Leather Workers’ Federation (ITGLWF). This has involved making contact between Gap’s in country ethical trading staff, the ITGLWF’s trade union affiliates in these countries, and in some cases suppliers. Gap told us in 2007 that, With help from stakeholders in the labor rights community, we have begun to develop a more integrated strategy to address this complex issue with the goal of creating a better space for improved industrial relations in our supply chain.Gap didn’t tell us is whether or not it intends this collaboration to result in pro-active steps to educate workers and facilitate trade union organisation in its suppliers. Monitoring and verificationGap responded to our concerns expressed in 2006 that it seemed too focused on social auditing and the SA8000 model (critiqued in the 2006 report):We recognize that monitoring is not enough and that we must work with factories, local civil society organizations and governments to find solutions to systemic causes of poor working conditions in garment factories. As such, we piloted new guidelines to help our VCOs better analyze the root causes of recurring compliance issues.It continued, Our monitoring and verification strategy is informed by our partnerships with global and local organizations around the world. In addition to our ongoing monitoring efforts, we engage with trade unions, NGOs, and other members of civil society to surface potential compliance violations in our contract factories.National-level collaboration with trade unions is a key part of this. Our conclusion: Gap remains one of the most progressive fashion brands when it comes to labour rights, but, as the other profiles in this report show, the competition is not exactly tough. We stated in 2006 that, “[t]he test of Gap’s commitment...will be whether it moves these projects from the pilot stage to roll them out across its supply chain.” It doesn’t seem that Gap has made much progress towards this in any of the three areas examined in this report, and in particular on moving from implementing minimum to living wages. That said, Gap’s collaborative approach, both with trade unions and NGOs and with other brand and retailers, is just what is needed if working conditions across the sector are to improve. |
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| Last Updated ( Sunday, 16 September 2007 ) | |||||
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