Women Workers and the Promise of Ethical Trade in the Globalised Garment Industry: A Serious Beginning?

Abstract

The paper gives an overview of the recent development within the Ethical Trade Initiative (ETI), especially the development of corporate codes of conduct, and considers the prospects they offer for improving labour conditions for workers in the international garments industry. It argues that two specific features of the industrycompetitive production systems based on international subcontracting and the use of predominantly female production workers-are likely to undermine the effective development of a codes-based strategy. Nevertheless, the labour rights agenda at the centre of ETI does provide a space for labour activists, whether operating in or out of formal union structures, to build campaigns and connections around global production networks. 526Antipode

From Plantations to Services: A Historical and Theoretical Assessment of the Transition from Agrarian to Service-Based Industries in the Caribbean

“…Implicit is the notion that global competition has intensifi ed as consumer markets become increasingly integrated into global commodity chains, thus producing uneven geographies between resource-poor producers in the Global South and their competitors in the developed North (Bonanno et al 1994 ;Wiley 1998 ;Hughes 2000 ;Hale and Shaw 2001 ).…”

Women workers in the apparel sector

“…Expanded trade fl ows and global supply chains have increased competition in various sectors by leading businesses to find the cheapest way to manufacture products. Satisfying growing consumerism in the Global North for lower-priced goods and maintaining maximum profi tability remains at the core of the global production process (Hale and Shaw, 2001).…”

“…The notion of ethical trade and 'green consumerism' arose in the 1990s for consumers, following alarming revelations that many reputable companies were exploiting workers throughout their supply and production chains (Hale and Shaw, 2001;Hale and Wills 2007;Pearson and Seyfang, 2001;McIntyre 2008;Miller 2004). With companies becoming increasingly sensitive to the threat of adverse publicity, many started incorporating voluntary corporate codes of conduct.…”

“…The three decade discourse has witnessed an intellectual and scholarly transition from the economic to the cultural, alongside which strident calls for ethical corporate codes in the apparel sector has become prominent (Blowfi eld, 1999;Hale and Shaw, 2001;Hale and Wills 2007;Heintz, 2004;Silvey, 2004). This journey, however, has not necessarily had an abiding focus on feminist concerns to do with the gendered nature of work itself.…”

Responsible Retailing: The Practice of CSR in Banana Plantations in Costa Rica

“…Accusations of reputable companies selling everyday goods made by exploited workers helped galvanise consumers into demanding that retailers take greater responsibility for the labour conditions in production chains and the fate of the overseas worker (Hale and Shaw, 2001). Retailers and branded manufacturers became acutely aware of the damage to their image arising from exposés of poor labour conditions in the supply chains that served them (Barrientos and Dolan, 2006).…”