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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. |
| Monsoon | | Print | |
Page 2 of 3 WagesMonsoon told us that,Monsoon Accessorize makes it clear to suppliers that it expects workers to be paid a living wage...there is still uncertainty around what constitutes a “living wage” and we continue to encourage the ETI to establish a multi-stakeholder working group to address this.When we met, we asked Monsoon what it specifically was doing. It mentioned participation in a couple of ETI projects - in Sri Lanka and China - that ‘include living wages’, although gave little detail on this, and added that, [u]ntil we’re ready and confident to roll it out, we can’t. The lessons learned [from these pilots] will be used to benchmark our supplier base and to highlight the benefits of good practice and the learnings will be communicated throughout the ETI.It is waiting for the ETI to establish a ‘task force’. Freedom of AssociationOn this topic, Monsoon told us,we recognise that successful implementation depends upon building understanding amongst suppliers and workers about the value of freedom of association. We are working to enhance this understanding through supplier workshops. We are also encouraging all Chinese suppliers to establish worker health and safety committees.It mentioned a couple of ETI pilot projects in which it had been involved, in India and China, that covered this issue. It said it had no plans to roll out worker training outside of these projects, stating that “it’s a question of how many projects we can take on at any one time.” Monitoring and verificationMonsoon told us here that,We have begun to collaborate with local NGOs where possible. In particular, we are establishing a partnership with China Labour Support Network (CLSN), a local NGO, to introduce local, independent verification of our auditing process. It is also working with a British NGO that has an Indian office, Business Trading Ethically, although we are sceptical about how close this NGO is to workers. Monsoon has doubled its resourcing in this area over the past year, and said it has, “seen significant change over the year.” Our conclusionMonsoon did cite a number of interesting examples and plans, but appeared surprised that, as a founding member of the ETI, we should be urging it to do more than it already is. What confused us about Monsoon is that it seemed to concede that it had been slow in the past and was only now catching up, but then cited examples of ETI pilot projects from this same past period, projects that cover a wide range of areas and which, while they might cover issues such as a living wage, cannot in themselves be read as a serious attempt to tackle these issues on the part of the companies concerned. Monsoon said it had plans to roll out learning from these pilot projects, but there wasn’t as much concrete as we would have liked to explain what it expected to learn and how and when it would do this, especially on the living wage. While there is work to commend at Monsoon, we’re not sure that it always appreciates the magnitude of the gap between reality and a situation in which workers’ rghts are respected, and we’re not sure how fast it is moving towards trying to achieve that situation. |
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| Last Updated ( Thursday, 13 September 2007 ) | |||||
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