Global supply chain
garrettbrown | September 21, 2017The whole world is one global supply chain. Brand name companies like Nike, Apple, Hasbro, and dozens of apparel companies do not actually make the consumer products they sell. Instead they hire contract manufacturers in the developing world to produce their goods, and these contractors have sub-contractors, and sub-sub-contractors, all the way down to industrial homework in workers’ homes. Global supply chains start with processing the products’ raw materials, manufacturing parts and the finished product, and then transportation to the consumer.
How can a conscientious consumer or…
garrettbrown | July 18, 2017Two global unions, four labor rights organizations and 23 apparel brands and retailers agreed in late June to amend and extend the ground-breaking Bangladesh Accord on Fire and Building Safety that has led to safer working conditions for 4 million garment workers in the world’s #2 apparel producer. The legally-binding agreement, initiated in 2013 following the Rana Plaza building collapse that killed 1,138 workers in Dhaka, is a success story that could improve working conditions in other countries and global supply chains.
The new Accord agreement, which goes into effect in May 2018 when…
garrettbrown | June 20, 2017With the whole world literally involved in global supply chains – how to keep track of working conditions and workers’ rights in global supply chains? There is a comprehensive “one stop” way – and then a several-other-stops method for the more ambitious.
The one-stop shopping is to sign up for weekly notifications from the UK’s Business & Human Rights Resource Centre. The staff of this non-profit organization in London scours the internet every day for the latest reports from companies, governments and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) on all aspects of global business. Their concise…
garrettbrown | January 26, 2017Mass firings by garment factories and a wave of government arrests of union leaders and worker rights advocates threatens the gains made in improving workplace health and safety for the 4 million, mainly women, garment workers in Bangladesh. A shadow of fear and intimidation has fallen over the nation’s 3,500 export garment factories, undermining the ongoing process to establish factory health and safety committees that have genuine, active participation by workers.
International clothing brands have tremendous influence in Bangladesh because of the $26 billion in apparel exports they ordered…
garrettbrown | December 13, 2016Investigations by the Workers Rights Consortium (WRC) in October 2015 and October 2016, as well as Fair Labor Association (FLA) investigations in July and October 2016, have revealed that a major Korean factory operator in Vietnam producing garments for a dozen international clothing brands runs a sweatshop operation. Nike and other brands which have contracts with the firm have conducted audits over many years, but working conditions in the factory have failed to improve.
In fact, in 2015 alone there were 26 separate corporate social responsibility (CSR) audits of the 12 factories in the…
Free on-line course on “decent work in global supply chains” offered by the Global Labour University
garrettbrown | November 29, 2016A free, two-month course on global supply chains is being offered on-line by the Global Labour University starting on January 12, 2017. The course is being taught in English by Penn State University Professor Mark Anner, one the leading labor-oriented researchers on the global economy. There's a video trailer for the course and enrollment for the course is now open.
The course brochure has the following description of the course:
“Global Supply Chains, controlled by transnational corporations, determine the ‘rules of the game’ in today’s global economy. Decent Work gaps are widespread in…
garrettbrown | November 29, 2016A new report by four leading workers’ rights group shows just how hard it is to get international clothing brands to fix problems in their global supply chains despite the fact that 1,100 workers were killed in an instant in an unsafe garment factory in Bangladesh.
Three and a half years after the Rana Plaza building collapsed in Dhaka, Bangladesh, five major clothing brands – Walmart, Gap, VF, Target and Hudson’s Bay – were found to have continuing hazards and dangerous delays in fixing them. What’s worse is that one of the three international inspection programs in Bangladesh – the…
garrettbrown | September 21, 2016In the early 1990s, sports apparel giant Nike became the “poster child” for sweatshops in its global supply chain – child labor, forced labor (mandatory overtime), wage theft, confiscation of migrant workers’ passports, sexual harassment of women workers, and unsafe and unhealthy working conditions.
Jump ahead 25 years, vast global supply chains with multiple tiers of international “brands,” contracted supplier factories, and numerous sub-contractors are now the norm for consumer goods sectors such as electronics, toys, apparel, home furnishings, food like fish and chocolate, sports shoes and…