A different kind of politician in Indiana

Where I’m wearing today: Adventures of an engaged consumer

Welcome to the newest regular, irregular feature here at WAIW?. In each “Where I’m wearing today: Adventure of an engaged consumer” post, I will select an item of clothing that I’m wearing and see what I can learn about the brand and country that produce it with a few clicks of the mouse.

I’m sure the posts will evolve over time, but, for now, here’s the methodology.

1) Link to the brands corporate code of conduct, if they have one, and list what’s good about it and what’s not-so good about it.

2) Google “(brands name) + sweatshop” and see if any red flags popup.

3) Google “garment industry + (country of origin)” to see what the latest news is in industry.

4) Give basic country facts: per capita income, unemployment rate, etc.

So, without further ado, let’s give it a go.

Today I’m wearing a pair of North Face cargo shorts Made in Bangladesh.

North Face is owned by the VF Corporation. It took several clicks to find this out and several more to locate their code of conduct and compliance materials. VF also owns North Face, Reef, Lee, Rustler, Nautica, and many others.

1) Corporate responsibility

The good –

The VF Corporation has the standard code of compliance.

Provide info on their auditing procedures (13 pages) and auditing reports (40 pages).

Audit Procedure – “Nothing can be done even a sample until a factory inspection has taken place. Will be done by an accredited auditing company. Conduct an annual review.”

“Due to political, environmental, and human rights issues there are certain countries
that are deemed unacceptable for the manufacture of VF products. This is a
continually changing situation, so the VF compliance office maintains an updated
listing.”

Work with Worldwide Responsible Apparel Production

Hires Verite to train factories on compliance.

The not-so good–

Don’t reveal factory locations.

Only two brands – Lee and JanSport – work with the FLA. They do this because they sell these brands to colleges. This shows the strength of the Sweatfree movement on college campuses.

Brags that average score of their owned/operated factories is 96% compliant, but the factories are graded on their own grading scale.

2) Negative press –

Humanitynews.net complains about the purchase of North Face uniforms for their police force : “Some police uniforms come from Horace Small and North Face, affiliates of the largest apparel corporation on the globe, VF Corporation. They don’t list factory locations, but Horace Small participates in W.R.A.P., a non-profit monitoring contractor. (Other affiliates of VF Corp., such as Nautica, are known to have sweatshops in Myanmar, which is a military dictatorship.)”

3) Made in Bangladesh in the news

I posted recently about the striking workers in Bangladesh.

4) Bangladesh Facts

Per capita income – $1,400. Considering that the workers I met in Bangladesh earned between $30-$70 a month, this # shows that per capita income isn’t that useful when looking at how much garment workers actually get paid in a particular country.

Unemployment – 2.5%. This seems pretty good until you consider…

Population below poverty – 45%

Confessions of a sweatshop inspector

The Washington Monthly has a great piece by editor and former social compliance inspector, T.A. Frank, titled Confessions of a Sweatshop Inspector (first seen on CloneSix). Frank covers a lot of the issues surrounding international sourcing. Here’s a few excerpts:

On the job…

Unfortunately, we missed stuff. All inspections do. And sometimes it was embarrassing. At one follow-up inspection of a factory in Bangkok at which I’d noted some serious but common wage violations, the auditors who followed me found pregnant employees hiding on the roof and Burmese import workers earning criminally low wages. Whoops.

On ignorance is bliss sourcing…

Now, anyone in the business knows that when inspections uncover safety violations or wage underpayment more than once or twice—let alone five times—it’s a sign that bigger problems are lurking beneath. Companies rarely get bamboozled about this sort of thing unless they want to.

And many prefer to be bamboozled, because it’s cheaper.

On WalMart…

I noticed that Wal-Mart claimed to require factories to maintain decent labor standards—but why did it seem to think it could find them among the lowest bidders?

On being an engaged consumer…

Now, I know about good and bad actors mostly because I saw them directly. But ordinary consumers searching on company Web sites—Walmart.com, Nike.com, etc.—can find out almost everything they need to know just sitting at their desks. For instance, just now I learned from Wal-Mart’s latest report on sourcing that only 26 percent of its audits are unannounced. By contrast, of the inspections Target conducts, 100 percent are unannounced. That’s a revealing difference. And companies that do what Nike does—prescreen, build long-term relationships, disclose producers—make a point of emphasizing that fact, and are relatively transparent. Companies that don’t are more guarded. (When in doubt, doubt.)

On child labor…

You may rightly hate the idea of child labor, but firing a fourteen-year-old in Indonesia from a factory job because she is fourteen does nothing but deprive her of income she is understandably desperate to keep. (She’ll find worse work elsewhere, most likely, or simply go hungry.)

On the Challenge…

But when a Chinese factory saves money by making its employees breathe hazardous fumes and, by doing so, closes down a U.S. factory that spends money on proper ventilation and masks, that’s wrong. It’s wrong by any measure. And that’s what we can do something about if we try. It’s the challenge we face as the walls come down, the dolls, pajamas, and televisions come in, and, increasingly, the future of our workers here is tied to that of workers who are oceans away.

Cleaning out my news story files

Prada – Made in Italy by imported Chinese workers (LA Times)

Excerpt:

Thousands of Tuscan factories that produce the region’s fabled leather goods are now operated and staffed by Chinese. Though located in one of Italy’s most picturesque and tourist-frequented regions, many of the factories are nothing more than sweatshops with deplorable conditions and virtually indentured workers.

Chinese laborers have become such an integral cog in the high-fashion wheel that large Chinatowns have sprung up here and in Florence. Signs in Chinese, Italian and sometimes English advertise prontomoda (ready-to-wear). At the main public hospital in Prato, the maternity ward on a recent morning was a cacophony of 40 squalling babies, 15 of them Chinese. “Mi chiamo Zhong Ti,” one of the crib tags said — “My name is Zhong Ti.”

My thoughts: Made in USA doesn’t always mean what it says either. Sometimes it means made in Saipan or by imported workers in LA.

—-

Sweatshop Shrimp Made in Thailand/Bangladesh

Excerpt:

Interviews with workers showed arduous conditions including “long hours, low pay, abusive employers, informal work, unsafe and unhealthy working conditions, and the vulnerability of migrant workers.” (Bangkok Post)

My thoughts: Like the garment industry, but with unpredictable seas.

—-

Big denim factory opens in Nicaragua

Excerpt:

Certain statements contained in this press release may constitute “forward looking statements” within the meaning of the United States Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. These statements may relate to, among other things, ITG’s future plans, revenue, earnings, outlook, expectations and strategies, and are based on management’s current beliefs. Forward looking statements involve a number of risks and uncertainties, including changes to the facts or assumptions underlying these statements (from Joshua Berman).

My thoughts: The above excerpt concludes the press release. I would prefer the include their “we made most of this crap up” statement at the beginning so I can not waste my time.

—-

Happiness author writes about servant

Excerpt:

One spring, puberty arrived, and suddenly I was the “father” of a hormonal Indian teenager. Once, while I was out of town, Kailash and a few friends rented porn movies and a VCR. I was appalled but also secretly pleased by his initiative. Whenever I asked Kailash about his aspirations, he demurred. “Whatever you want me to do, sir,” he would say. “As you wish.” (NY TIMES)

My thoughts: I’ve been falling asleep to Eric Weiner’s Geography of Bliss for a few months now. To be fair, it keeps me up on occasion. It’s a worldwide quest to find the happiest place on Earth. It’s worth a read.

A Flat World and a pie in the face

The site was down this weekend, which is a convenient excuse for me not posting anything.

Anyhow, Tom Friedman, author of the World is Flat, recently got a pie in the face while talking about globalization and the environment.

Which leads me to ask this question: Is there a better way to promote your book than a pie in the face?

Honesty

The Scene: A son sits in a Laz-Boy next to his father who is watching the NBA Playoffs. The son’s first book is six months away from being published.

Son (holds up book on natural hormonal balance): This your book?

Father: Nope. I’m not much of a book guy.

Son: When my book comes out will you read it?

Father: Probably not all of it. Maybe a few parts.

End Scene

In the matter of full disclosure, I’m the son and my dad truly is NOT much of a book guy. The only book I know of that he’s read cover to cover is about a boy named Homer Price and his doughnut machine. If I caught him actually reading a book, I’m not sure what I would say or do – perhaps faint.

So yes, I’m okay with my own father not reading my book…as long as he buys a copy.

Bangladesh garment workers want wages to rise with soaring costs of food

15,000 workers go on strike. When you earn $25/month and rice is 25 cents a pound, something has gotta give.

Daily Show correspondent John Oliver on Fair Trade, China, and Outsourcing

Worried that China is going to dominate the global economy? Stop. Oliver assures us that they won’t because Chinese people will never buy inflatable grills.

What about Free Trade? Oliver says we should demonize unfair trade.

Outsourcing? Yes. Oliver outsources his jokes to a 10-year old Indonesian boy.

Watch the video. It’s just another example of why we should be electing comedians to the land’s highest offices.

Does blogging build a writing career?

Abha from Writtenroad.com asks several travel writers HERE, “How important is blogging in building your career as a travel-writer? Has blogging ever got you any work with print publications?” She included part of my answer, here’s the rest:

As far as advancing my career as a writer, blogging has been every bit as important as dumb luck.

It was dumb luck when Literary Agent A stumbled upon my blog, www.whereamiwearing.com and asked me if I had considered writing a book about the subject. This was before I had even left on the trip the blog was about.

When I returned from the trip I went to a writer’s conference in Muncie, Indiana, (not exactly a hotspot for meeting agents) and asked Agent B about pre-contract etiquette dealing with Agent A. Agent B asked about my book and was darn near more enthusiastic about it than me. Agent B, Caren, became my agent and a few months later sold my first book, which shares a name with my blog.

In the year I’ve kept the blog, I’ve spent over 72,000 minutes (50 days) writing it, but never considered myself a blogger until the Publisher’s Marketplace listing of the sale was released:

Non-fiction Narrative: www.whereamiwearing.com blogger Kelsey Timmerman’s WHERE AM I WEARING?, in which the author learns about the garment industry by following the Made In China/Bangladesh/Honduras tags of a complete outfit and goes to the countries to visit the factories that made his clothes and talk to its workers…

I started as a blogger and, with a little dumb luck, I became an author.

As for print publications…

I rarely direct editors of newspapers and magazines to my blog, for the simple fact that they might visit on a day I write about shaving my tongue or farting on airplanes. However, I have adapted blog posts that eventually ran in print publications or aired as essays on NPR. In this way, blogging is more of a personal writing tool for me than an eye-catcher for editors.

A thousand words…floating village