What kind of consumer are you?

I’m working on the books conclusion and thought I would share a bit on types of consumers. Actually, my intentions are selfish. I wanted to see if anyone else had any types of consumers they would add to the list. Let me know if you have any ideas or if the below passage rubs you one way or the other.

Are we bargain hunters that follow our pocketbooks more than our conscience? If so, we don’t care where or who made our clothes as long as we get a good deal. But some of us don’t have a choice. If we want to clothe and feed our families, we can’t afford to be anything else but bargain hunters. As much as we would like to have the option to worry about a garment worker in Bangladesh struggling to support her family, we are struggling to support our own.

Are we red, white, and blue consumers that, after watching our jobs and those of our neighbors slip away, want to support only American companies? Believe it or not, it’s possible. If so, we support companies like American Apparel, the U.S.’s largest garment manufacturer, which employs 4,000 workers at its facility in Los Angeles. Dov Charney, a controversial figure recognized in The Economist of, “…(having) been called a brilliant businessman, an amateur pornographer, a Jewish hustler and a man with a social mission,” founded the company in 2003. Anti-sweatshop and anti-globalization activists alike have praised Charney and American Apparel for their vertically integrated business model, keeping business in the U.S., and providing his workers with a fair wage and benefits. Charney told The Economist, “I believe in capitalism and self-interest. Self-interest can involve being generous with others.”

Where Charney sees his decision to manufacture in the U.S. as primarily a good business decision, other companies see their decision to sell only products made in the U.S. as primarily an ethical/patriotic one. All-American Clothing Co. – which incidentally is located in Darke County, Ohio, not far from where I grew up – sells solely American-made products online.

Are we conscientious consumers that want to be sure the products we buy were made under good working conditions and the workers are treated fairly? If so, we shop online at places like Justice Clothing, Maggie’s Organics/Clean Clothes, and No Sweat Apparel that ensure us they source from factories that meet our approval.

For most of my life, I have been none of the above. I was fortunate enough to not be restricted to bargains, yet I really didn’t put much thought to whom or where I was wearing. I was the worst kind of consumer – an apathetic one. I knew the people that made my clothes lived difficult lives, but I didn’t think about it.

Now I do.

I believe that we need to be engaged consumers. Until some type of GWC-like labeling system is available, we have to base our purchasing decisions on our own research. We should visit companies’ websites of the products we buy or are considering to buy from to see what kind of involvement they have with monitoring the factories they source from. If they only have a couple of paragraphs outlining their codes and how they self-police their factories, we might want to consider shopping elsewhere. But if they belong to organizations like the Fair Labor Association or have worked with the Clean Clothes Campaign, their factories are inspected by a third party, they have a position or department that handles social responsibility issues, and they acknowledge the challenges of ethical sourcing, we should consider giving them our business. Of course, this doesn’t necessarily guarantee that their products are made under fair conditions, but such actions show signs that the company is engaged.

Nike’s Contract Factory Compliance flowchart

I’ve been farting around looking at Nike’s Corporate Social Responsibility info (there’s a ton) and stumbled upon this flow chart. If the point of this chart was to show how complex factory compliance is, it worked on me. I don’t have a PhD in flowcharts and don’t have a clue what it all means.

Can you figure it out? The larger version is located in this .pdf file on page 27.

Bibi Russell on the World Vision Report

The World Vision Report aired my interview with model/designer/saint/UN Ambassador Bibi Russell. They mixed the interview with some Bangladeshi music and I think it turned out quite good. Especially, since it’s my first ever recorded piece to air.

Listen to it now.

Bibi plays an important part in my book. Here’s how the chapter she’s featured in starts out:

“Now is a good time,” Bibi said. “The electricity is out.”

I have never interviewed a supermodel before or even talked to one, for that matter. I never expected that she would be there - up three flights of stairs off the chaotic streets of Dhaka sitting in the dark.

When she stood I almost said, “Boy, you sure are tall and skinny,” but I didn’t. I would say dumber things later.

“Do you smoke?” She asked in her elegant, full-bodied smoker’s voice.

“No…”

“Good,” she said.

“But go ahead.” As if she needed my permission to smoke in her own office.

China, Olympics, and human rights…oh my!

Ricky Reilly might be gone, but the back page of Sports Illustrated is still pumping out some worthwhile pieces. S.L. Price wrote one about the Olympic committee granting China this year’s summer Olympics with the hopes that China would work on its human rights. But they haven’t. The Olympics are here and the international community and the Olympic committee are turning a blind-eye.

Here’s an excerpt:

China? In the seven years since being awarded the Games it has emerged as an economic superpower — potent enough to welcome the Olympics even as it freely flouts the Olympic spirit. Why should China keep its vow on human rights? No country will boycott the Games, and no sponsor will pull out of them, if it means losing a foothold in the market of the future.

I think about everything in terms of the family I met in China - Li, Zhoun, and their son Lin Xin. China is growing, but the wealth isn’t being shared. Even if it was, would it really matter? Lin Xin’s parents might make more money than the workers I met in Bangladesh, but the Bangladeshi’s have a better chance of standing up for their rights. And it’s hard to put a price on that.

The sentence of the day/Today’s tongue twister

In front of the flip flop factory, the flip flop fabricators wear flip flops.

How fun is that? I’m having an awesome day writing and that sentence just made it twice as awesome.

New World Vision Report Interview

I recorded another interview for the World Vision Report about Where am I Wearing?. We recorded this one from Ball State’s David Letterman communication center. If you’ve listened to the previous interviews there’s not much new in this one, but it is much clearer. All of the other interviews were recorded continents away over the phone. This one was recorded over an ISDN line in the studio and it sounds like I’m in the same room with Peggy, the host, even though she was in Texas. It’s part of a one-hour special on fashion that will appear on many NPR stations across the country.

I’ve yet to hear myself on the radio, which would be a hoot. But last week a fella I met in China emailed me after hearing one of my previous interviews I recorded via phone in Cambodia, with Peggy was in Texas, with the producer in Seattle, and the editor in North Carolina. The World Vision Report works from a virtual office.

We live in a virtual world. This is a good thing for a writer living in Indiana.

Hard to swallow, my flip flops

The people that make our flip flops often work 15-16 hours per day seven days a week. I don’t imagine that this complies with any worker laws, regulations, or compliances anywhere in the world. That’s why I gave the passage below from Deckers Outdoor’s webpage the ol’ “bullshit” sneeze.

Deckers We do not manufacture our footwear. We outsource the manufacturing of our Teva, Simple and UGG footwear to independent manufacturers in China. We also outsource the manufacturing of our UGG footwear to independent manufacturers in New Zealand and Australia. We require our independent contract manufacturers and designated suppliers to adopt our Factory Charter and to comply with all local laws and regulations governing human rights, working conditions and environmental compliance, before we are willing to place business with them. We require our licensees to demand the same from their contract factories and suppliers. We have no long-term contracts with our manufacturers. As we grow, we expect to continue to rely exclusively on independent manufacturers for our
sourcing needs.

I was told that China has stricter labor laws than what we have in the USA so it’s highly unlikely that the factory I visited that makes Tevas meets them. But in China, the law and practice are two very different things. Deckers is probably not any more or less guilty than other shoe manufacturers that source in China, which is pretty much all of them.

Deckers is trying to capitalize on the sustainability movement, but how long before they start trying to capitalize on the social-conscience movement and offer products by workers who don’t spend every waking minute gluing, stitching, and packing?

I found this passage on their website, too. (Again, I’ve highlighted the points that I find hard to swallow):

We do the right thing by assuring that our manufacturers do not employ child, forced, indentured, or convict labor. We openly and proudly comply with guidelines set forth by Amnesty International that recognized these Human Rights standards in the workplace. How can we be sure? Easy. We have full access to our factories, and we grade them several times a year against our standards. This helps us work closely with our manufacturers to ensure that safety measures like adequate lighting, healthy air, access to first aid, set minimum wages and protection against mandatory overtime, and safe workstations are implemented.

I would drive 45 mph in a 35 mph zone if there weren’t police officers that would give me a ticket. Wouldn’t you? Self-policing just doesn’t work.

Here’s more thoughts on my flip flops.

A thousand words…Garment Factory Owner

Homemade clothes

I was at Hobby Lobby today and while Annie was shopping I looked around. I stumbled into the “make your own clothes” section and started looking at fabric. It was all made overseas, from Japan, China, Pakistan, all over the place. Even if you tried to remove yourself from the garment industry by making your own clothes, the stuff you use to make your clothes will be made by people much less fortunate.

The narrative journalism oath

1/29/08
Karl Schoenberger author of Levi’s Children: coming to terms with human rights in the global marketplace on narrative journalism:

“When the human rights narrative abandons the pretext of objectivity and crosses over into the realm of pure entertainment, it can become as preposterous as it is insidious.

The problem begins with the occasional purple-prose narrative journalism that reveals shocking tales of egregious human rights violations but neglects to follow up on the factual chain of events or to place the sordid tale into a broader context. The consumer of a newspaper article or a TV newsmagazine expose feels absolved of personal responsibility after experiencing a delicious emotional revulsion to the outrage, without being asked to think about how to prevent it from happening again. For an ephemeral moment, the passive audience for cheesy entertainment journalism can feel good about detesting Nike shoes or virtual slavery on Saipan without any obligation to revisit the intellectual and more challenges of the issue the next day.”

I Kelsey Timmerman, soon-to-be author of Where am I Wearing? do solemnly swear to not use purple-prose (or any other color of prose) in my narrative, to place all sordid tales in a broad context, to avoid having my readers experience any delicious emotional revulsion to outrage, and to cut the cheese out of my journalism.

Thank you.