By Simone Miller
Ida Crown’s uniform ensures that students adhere to Judaic standards of modesty. What if the uniform placed the same emphasis on Jewish values of treating other people morally?
The Torah regards ethics in business highly: “And when you sell something to your fellow, or buy from the hand of your fellow, don't exploit each one his brother” (Leviticus 25:14).
Much of the clothing for sale in America and the West is produced in sweatshops around the world with atrocious conditions and little regard for human rights according to the United States Department of Labor. Many people think sweatshops are a thing of the past and don’t realize the central role that sweatshops play in the fashion industry today.
Consumers want their clothing quickly and cheaply in today’s fast fashion industry. Laborers then need to work quicker and cheaper to satiate consumer’s demands, causing an unsustainable decline in clothing prices.
Shoppers’ hunger for cheap prices is especially apparent on Black Friday, when people camp outside, shove, and fight their way to discounted goods. Though Black Friday is one day every year, the ravaging effects of consumers’ desperation for cheap prices impact laborers in other countries daily.
The Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire in 1911 galvanized people and still reverberates in our memory as a horrific example of the abuse of garment workers that resulted in improved labor standards in America, effectively ending the sweatshop business in our country. Yet a recent similar incident in Bangladesh, the Rana Plaza collapse in 2013, killed 1,134 workers and seems to have little impact on American business and foreign policy.
An estimated 250 million children between the ages of five and fourteen are working against their will in sweatshops in developing countries according to the United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund. More than a million Bangladeshi children, 10% to 25% of children under the age of sixteen in Latin America, and between 5% and 30% of children under the age of sixteen in India, work as child laborers, often to provide basic provisions for themselves and their families. None of these children are able to pursue an education or alternative occupations because they are paid so little: $0.13 an hour, on average, according to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. Thus these children need to spend the majority of their negligible profits on sustenance and the rest on rent and medical costs.
Impoverished countries such as Bangladesh have few labor laws and are reluctant to implement stricter laws to protect workers because they fear they will discourage international investors; therefore, millions of workers slave away for 10 to 16 hours a day with little return and experience horrible working conditions and workplace abuse.
Shima Akhter, a garment worker in Bangladesh, comments in “The True Cost” documentary on the unfair socioeconomic gap between laborers and consumers, saying, “People have no idea how difficult it is for us to make the clothing. They only buy it and wear it...I don’t want anyone wearing anything that is produced by our blood.”
Much of the clothes we wear are produced under these intolerable conditions. Take a look at the tags on the clothes you are wearing right now. If you’re wearing an Ida Crown uniform from Land’s End, then it was likely produced in Bangladeshi or Vietnamese sweatshops.
Land’s End has opaque labour policies: The company releases no statistics or information about where its clothes are produced or about their outsourcing. In 2011, a report from the Institute of Global Labor and Human Rights revealed one of Land’s End’s factories, the Classic Fashion Factory in Jordan, was hiring poor Asian women, robbing them of their passports, and then systematically raping them while forcing them to work grueling hours for negligible pay. One woman at the Classic Factory hanged herself in the sweatshop’s bathroom, a common occurrence in many sweatshops.
Land’s End ended their business relationship with Classic after the report was revealed, but companies such as Walmart did not drop the factory even after the discovery of such gross abuses. Land’s End only terminated their business with Classic after the report was published, and has not since improved their code of conduct, agree to disclose the names of factories where their clothing is produced, nor guarantee a living wage for their workers.
Some companies are moving towards greater transparency about their labour conditions, and the majority of consumers affirm that they would be willing to spend 15% more on ensuring higher ethical standards for the clothing they buy according to a recent poll by Ipsos MORI, a market research firm based in the UK. Companies such as H&M and Zara, which carry skirts and clothing following Judaic standards of tzniut, have expansive codes of conduct guaranteeing workers a living wage, a progressive safety, protection policies, and bans against child and forced labor.
The United Nations’ International Labour Organization has standards and regulations regarding labor, which— though not ideal— are certainly a start.
Apps and websites such as Good on You, the Good Guide, and RankABrand provide easy access for consumers to learn more about the products and goods they buy.
Maybe it’s time for ICJA to explore sourcing uniforms from more ethical suppliers, and to take to heart the Judaic values of “Justice, Justice shall you pursue” (Deut. 16:20).
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