This post at Ultra Violet highlights the dire situation of garment factory workers in Bangalore, giving a a new perspective to the city’s reputation as India’s Silicon Valley. Both exports and the domestic market are taking off, and the apparel industry is booming–but who are getting the benefits? Surely not the 80% of workers who are women.
I don’t think it’s right to solely blame the consumer as the driving force behind this. As the post mentions, even when there are monitoring systems in place, many violations fall through the cracks.
While the Brands are keen to convey to their western consumers that workers are well looked after, the actual gap between what the compliance officer sees ( or chooses not to see) and the rosy image that the Brand attempts to project, seems to be widening.
The fact is that the system is already in place, a system which seeks to maximise profit and minimise cost. Of course the consumer does benefit from such a system as the prices are low, but these same workers are also consumers of a different sort (of foodstuffs, for example).
If we blaming consumers, then we also attribute to them more power than they actually have. Look at how ethically motivated consumer movements such as those against child labour have ended up in unemployment–does this necessarily benefit the child labourer? Consumers don’t really have the power to fix the system, just to use the power of their pocketbooks in ways that may not always help those that they intend to help.
As for an actual solution, well I’m still searching…!
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