The promotional clothing industry is facing a real challenge. By it’s very nature, the industry relies on cheap, disposable garments that are immediately available to customers. But what is the real cost of producing such ‘fast fashion’? And is it possible for inexpensive promotional merchandise and an ethical supply chain to co-exist together?

While less attention is paid to promotional companies, there is still growing pressure particularly from charities, NGO’s and student groups for ethical, transparent manufacturing processes within the blank garment industry.

The problem

26 million people worldwide make clothing and textiles.Working conditions in many factories are very poor, with owners failing to pay a liveable minimum wage and enforcing long hours, un-paid overtime, child labour, restricted union rights and substandard health and safety conditions.

There is an ethical question surrounding whose responsibility it is to increase wages. Some of the responsibility lies with companies who can use their influence to implement higher wages, by demonstrating to the factory a genuine commitment to improving working conditions.

One way to do this is to ensure trade unions are set up, allowing workers ‘Freedom of Association’ and the right to collective bargaining. Martin Hearson from Labour Behind the Label, one of the UK’s major campaigners for improved labour standards, stressed the importance of unions as a as a means to empower workers to defend their own rights, such as the right to earn a living wage.

However, the low-cost purchasing practices that aim to successfully screw down prices as low as possible, mean the supplier becomes trapped between the 'rock and the hard place' and often turn against their own workers if they try to unionise. In many garment-producing areas, factory owners join together to create a kind of ‘cartel’. Together they agree wages and working hours and it is very difficult for one owner to go against this.

Auditing the supply chain can help companies keep an eye on what’s going on in the factory, but in practice is very difficult to monitor. Factory owners, under pressure to achieve lower and lower prices, often let standards slip or even cover up some of the more unethical working practices. During very busy times, some of the production can be outsourced so it is sometimes hard to know where the garments are actually being made.

The way forward

There is a long way to go before these problems can be solved and working conditions significantly improved. There is still a huge pressure (from both consumers and manufacturers, and in turn suppliers trying to entice more customers) to keep prices down as low as possible, whatever the real ‘cost’. A change in strategy can be both consumer and client driven, where value, quality, sustainability and ethical production all become equally important.

A large number of promotional companies are already getting involved and improving working conditions through audits and checking processes. There are a number of codes of conduct that can be used as guidelines, such as the Ethical Trading Initiative, the Fair Wear Campaign and the Jo-in Criteria. Companies (and indeed buyers) can be responsible for improving the lives of hundreds, maybe thousands, of workers by monitoring:

• clothing producers’ wages and working with suppliers to introduce a ‘liveable’ wage
• what hours are regularly worked and whether overtime is enforced and unpaid
• whether suppliers are allowing workers to represent themselves through union groups
• the whole of the supply chain through regular, unannounced checks

Epona has formed a close relationship with the factory it uses (pictured) and has an agent in India who helps to monitor the supply chain. Amongst other things, we’ve been working with our suppliers to achieve even better working conditions, and the factory has opted to become vertically integrated so it owns all the stages of the production process. This means it doesn’t need to contract out jobs on a regular basis and makes it easier to monitor working practices. There is an exciting opportunity for the promotional industry to tap into the public interest in ethical issues and lead the way in mass produced clothing manufacture, creating a model that keeps end-user prices low, ensures profitability for the manufacturer and helps to improve working practices throughout the supply chain.