REPORT 2014 Consumer Behaviour and Worker’s Rights in the Textile Industry: Do Slovak’s Care about the Real Cost of Clothes?

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Consumer Behaviour and Worker’s Rights in the Textile Industry: Do Slovaks Care about the Real

Cost of their Clothes?

Daniela Kellerova

Comenius University Bratislava

Scottish Action and Education for Development

November 2014

This report summarises information gathered during a survey conducted in Bratislava in order to receive customer’s opinions about worker’s rights in garment industry.

As a part of a course of European Studies at the Comenius University in Bratislava, Faculty of Social and Economic Sciences, I completed a long-distance internship at Scottish Education and Action for Development (SEAD) based in Edinburgh, thanks to which this report is written. The structure of the questionnaire issued was kindly checked by a political scientist and sociologist Olga Gyarfasova of the Faculty of social and Economic sciences, Comenius University in Bratislava.

Furthermore, the SEAD Director Jeni Mackay supervised me throughout whole process of preparing, conducting and finishing all the tasks. SEAD is a Scottish based non-profit committed to popular education and international development, that works closely with Labour behind the Label and Clean Clothes Campaign (CCC) on garment industry under its project Action for Clothing with Dignity.

Slovak Centre for Communication and Development (SCCD), an NGO seated in Bratislava, Slovakia, runs an EU project called Fit for Fair (FFF). According to the head of the

organisation, Zuzana Jezerska, FFF is a unique type of project in Slovakia and therefore SCCD is the only organisation in the country working on the issue of decent work with FFF aimed in particular at worker’s rights in sport garment industry. SCCD cooperates with Clean Clothes Campaign (CCC), Labour behind the Labour and also works closely with regional NGOs on the issue with other NGO’s, especially with German partners, Christliche Initiative Romero.

The SCCD gladly disseminated the questionnaire among its staff and trade unions members, thus contributing to higher numbers of respondents. They also provided me with Slovak media monitoring on the issue of problems in garment and shoe industry in Slovakia. Also, they have updated me on the regional report Stitched up that was being written at the time and issued in July 2014. Special thanks belong to KatarinaMiesler from Centre for environment and ethical education Zivica, who interviewed nine workers from five Slovak factories and thus contributed to the Stitched up regional report. My thanks also belong to Daniel Rolin from FFF project who kindlyparticipated at the organised documentary film-screening event EuroCine as a guest speaker. And special thanks to Kiley Mead who volunteered as a graphic designer for this report.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

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IntroductionSituation in SlovakiaMethods and design of the surveySurvey resultsConclusions of the reportRecommendations for action

Appendices: 1. Questionnaire, 2. Spread sheet with answers

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CONTENTS

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INTRODUCTION

RELEVANCE OF THIS REPORT LIES IN THE FACT THAT IN

SLOVAKIA:

This report will be dealing with the results of a survey conducted in Bratislava into the knowledge of worker’s rights in textile industry. The main aim is to find out whether Slovaks are aware about the problems in textile industry and potentially also provide examples possible alternatives of taking actions for change. How many people who knew about the issue cared about it, and how many and what action would they take? This report tries to answer this and many more questions of the survey, and set the worldwide systemic problem of textiles into context of a small European post-communist country.

In order to do this, the structure of the report will be as followed: Firstly, the situation in Slovakia will be explored: the NGOs, projects and Slovak media dealing with this issue in the country will be discussed and most important findings of the Clean Clothes campaign report ‘Stitched up – poverty wages in Eastern Europe’ on textile industry conflict will be summarised. Secondly, the survey design and questions asked will be summarised. Thirdly, the survey findings will be elaborated.

As a part of Global East belongs to the countries that are just as Global South at the same position in the supply chain in the clothing industrywith similar problems (that will be in a greater detail discussed later).

Few years have passed since it transformed from aid receiving country into aid giving country, but still hearts and minds of majority people are not aware of this and people in general care much more about the price to the real cost of cheap clothing (see results of the survey below).

Therefore in Slovakia an interesting schism happened: at the same time as it is having problems in its own garment and shoe industry1, it also evolved into a large consumer driven country in the last 25 years since the fall of communism.

Why is it important to talk about the issue of workers’ rights and decent work in general? International Labour organisation explains this, that “work is central to people’s well-being. In addition to providing income, work can pave the way for broader social and economic advancement, strengthening individuals, their families and communities. Such progress, however, hinges on work that is decent.”2 Interestingly enough, what a recent regional report shows is that it is absolutely necessary to tackle the issue of worker’s rights in the Global East counties as well.

- Slovak worker, Clean Clothes Campaign ‘Stitched Up’ report, 2014

“The wage went down. We used to have 430 euro, then it went down to 330 euro. You can’t imagine what kind of disaster this causes for the family.”

1 See Stitched up report of the CCC that showed numerous workers’ right violations in Slovakia and in the whole covered the region2 ILO decent work agenda cited in http://www.cleanclothes.org/resources/publications/stitched-up-1

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THE SITUATION IN SLOVAKIA 2FIT FOR FAIR 2.1

DOCUMENTARY FILM SCREENING 2.2

Fit for Fair is a project, only of its kind in Slovakia. It is conducted by the SCCD and its main objective is sportswear. Among its activities belong for example preparing public events, exhibitions, and campaign for the Football championships 2014 aimed to show that not everything that is connected to sports can be fair. Moreover, also seminars and workshops for teachers and lectors are planned, as well as materials on the topic of decent work for Slovak journalists in order to share information about the issue in the media.3

As a part of awareness raising action about the issue of worker’s right in textile industry, a film event was organised in Bratislava, Slovakia. Two documentary films about recent factory tragedies in Bangladesh were chosen: BBC Panorama: Dying for a bargain and Aljazeera Fault lines: Made in Bangladesh, for a student event of Comenius University in Bratislava, called EuroCine. Daniela Kellerova and Daniel Rolin from SCCD took part as guests and after the screening a discussion was held. Participants were asked to look at the labels of their clothing and tell where the item came from – about majority of it was from Bangladesh what produced an interesting starting point for the discussion.

MOST INTERESTING FINDINGS FROM THE DISCUSSION WERE:•Low knowledge about the issue in general. Very little is being written in the newspapers and no actions or campaigns were held in Slovakia (as for example massive passing out in front of H&M or such).

•General interest – audience was asking loads of questions.

•Passive behaviour – most important question of the day: what do I do when I enter a shopping mall – which brand to choose? Which one is the ‘lesser evil’? No comprehension of the complexity of the structural problem in this industry that lead to searching for an easy solution.

•People were also demotivated as they saw the problem as unable to be solved

Figure 1. Fit for Fair campaign logo. Source: Slovak Centre for Communication and Development.

Figure 2. Eurocine Event poster

3 More information about the project can be found here: http://www.sccdsk.org/en/sckr/aktivity/dostojna-praca/fit-for-fairw

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SLOVAK MEDIA MONITORING 2.3 According to some media monitoring kindly provided by the SCCD, in general there is very low interest from the side of journalists and media to write articles on this topic. If so, problems in textile industry are mainly mentioned concerning Slovak factory workers.

However, a Slovak journalist, Stanislava Harkotova, has been devoting her articles at website aktualne.sk to inform about this topic worldwide as well as about problems of textile industry in Slovakia.4 Furthermore, during the time of one year after the Rana Plaza tragedy, there was a growing interest in the topic in Slovak daily SME as well.5

Also SCCD as a member of Slovak non-governmental development organisations platform6 took action in Live Fairly (Ži fér) campaign where they informed about the worldwide textiles problems in a short video. Moreover, SCCD has been actively informing about the issue via sharing articles on social sites such as Facebook. As will be discussed later, on the question ‘Are you acquainted with problems and conditions of workers in textile industry?’ there was a considerable proportion of negative answers. Therefore, there is much work needed in informing people about the issue much further.

WHAT DO YOU CARE ABOUT MOST WHEN BUYING AN ITEM?OUT OF 115 RESPONDENTS:

55% do care about working conditions

ARE YOU CONCERNED WITH WHERE YOUR CLOTHES WERE MADE?

62.84% did not care where clothes were made

“Why do we care about an item if even the material itself is made with pesticides, or child work?”

-participant of the Eurocine discussion

4 http://aktualne.atlas.sk/sicke-plat-nedvihneme-lebo-toto-su-vyhovorky-textilnychfiriem/zahranicie/europa/5 http://www.sme.sk/c/7179907/desat-centov-za-odev-naviac-by-banglades-zmenilo-k-lepsiemu.html6 Slovak NDGO Platform http://www.mvro.sk/en/

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COUNTRY AND REGIONAL REPORT OF CONDITIONS IN THE

GARMENT INDUSTRY 2.4

At the time of conducting the survey, the report ‘Stitched Up’-Poverty wages for garment workers in Eastern Europe7 was launched with the result of extensive field research by the CCC and its local partners. The findings of the report will be discussed for a better understanding and a broader picture of the garment industry problem.

Pressing issues were found about the garment and shoe industry in Slovakia as well as in the Global East region.8

•Despite a long history in garment production and the highly skilled workforce, researchers found that nearly all those producing clothes for major European retailers such as Hugo Boss, Adidas, Zara, H&M or Benetton are paid below the poverty line.

•The industry is creating poverty rather than fighting it. Legal minimum wages only covers between 14% (Bulgaria, Ukraine, Macedonia) and 36% (Croatia) of a basic living wage. This discrepancy is larger in comparison to Asian countries.

•Gender discrimination of industry – lowest or second lowest wages compared to other industries. As much as 90% of workers are women, considered ‘unskilled’ labour are paid on a piece rate instead of per hour rate as men workers.

•Misuse of the self-employed status by the factories as it offers a way to circumvent paying social insurance.

•Huge unemployment – threat of reallocation if wages increase

GLOBAL EASTFacing tragedies of such scale as Tazreen fire in Pakistan in November 2012 and Rana Plaza building collapse in Bangladesh in April 2013, the world woke up into the real costs of the cheap clothes. Afterwards, many companies talked about preferred relocation to Europe with more secure working conditions and also according to the report, for certain companies it became economically simply more advantageous to produce in Europe’s cheap labour countries. The Stitched Up report focuses on European post-communist countries plus Turkey to inform about worker’s situation in factories from this region called Global East.

The report summarises the situation of the textile industry and economic structure in this region as comparable to the “developing countries” in the Global South in a way it is integrated into the global supply chain. The garment and shoe sectors got downgraded to sewing shops, which are highly dependent on orders from Western buyers. This dependent position of textile industry means very limited opportunities of upgrading the sector and it represents a ‘dead end road for the national economy’.

In spite of the fact, that many brands preferred transferring production from Global South to the Global East for economic reasons, quality and security, also in these countries remain huge problems. CCC research found numerous labour and human rights violations. The Stitched Up report found that the

most pressing issue was low wages:

•Just like in Asia, garment workers in the Global East earn the legal minimum wage. In practice, the legal minimum wage is often the ceiling instead of the bottom line for wages.

•Just like in Asia, the legal minimum wage is a poverty wage. In researched countries the legal minimum wage is set far below a subsistence minimum as defined by the national statistics offices and even below the poverty line of 50% of the national average wage as defined by the European Committee of Social Rights.

•Thus the legal minimum wage cannot even cover the most basic needs of workers and their families and actually consolidates poverty rather than eliminating it.

Figure 3. Stitched up, Clean Clothes Campaign, 2014.

‘For certain companies, especially for medium-sized

companies, specialized products and smaller volumes such as

work wear, and for fast-fashion lines of global buyers such

as Zara and H&M, it became economically simply more

advantaeous to produce in Europe’s cheap labour countires.’-Slovakian worker, Clean Clothes Campaign ‘Stitched Up’ report, 2014

7 see more information here http://www.cleanclothes.org/news/press-releases/2014/06/10/stitched-up and download the report here http://www.cleanclothes.org/resources/publications/stitched-up-18 All foundings cited from the Stitched up report. See above.

Figure 4. Shopping centre in Bratislava, Slovakia. Source: Daniela Kellerova.

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‘I needed to go to an allergist, but I blew all possible

dates only because I did not want to get fired. Finally,

I went to the doctor to get my injection for my allergy,

but the doctor refused to treat me because the company

hadn’t paid my insurance.’- Slovakian worker, Clean Clothes Campaign ‘Stitched Up’ report, 2014

“In all researched countries (except Istanbul

region, Croatia and Ukraine), the lowest

found take-home net wages do not even

reach 30% of an estimated living wage” -‘Stitched Up’ report, 2014

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SLOVAKIAAccording to the country profile report elaborated in 2013 for Stitched up report’9 the textile and shoe industry totals 6.7% share in manufacturing employment. This sector is one of Slovakia’s main industrial employer and export branch. As much as 834 garment and shoe factories are registered, with 20,180 employees, also there are self-employed workers or workers without a contract as well. However, the working conditions in the factories are appalling.

Lowest take-home-net-wage of interviewees including overtime in Slovakia was 300 Euros which represents around 22% of estimated minimum living wage. Furthermore, 90% of workers are women and at the same time having one of the lowest wages in manufacturing, highlights a gender pay discrimination. Other wage related rights violations included: closure of factories without paying outstanding wages and severance payments, overtime or pay on Saturdays.

Garment and shoe factories are often situated in areas with a high unemployment rate (average in Slovakia 14% as of 2013), and concerned with loosing jobs. This fear overshadows all other concerns. According to the report, threatening workers with joblosses often takes place. As a Slovakian worker stated in the report.

Figure 5. Stitched up report, Clean Clothes Campaign, 2014.

METHODS AND DESIGN OF THE SURVEY 3

SET OF QUESTIONS WERE DESIGNED TO RECEIVE AS BROAD A PICTURE OF THE RESEARCHED ISSUE AS POSSIBLE:1 How often do you usually buy clothes from retailers such

as Zara, H&M, Adidas etc.? On a scale from 1 to 5 (with 5 meaning very often, e.g. few times a week) this question aims to find out the overall popularity of consumption of famous brands among respondents.

2 How often do you usually buy clothes from second hand shops? Taking into account perceived unpopularity of this kind of shops among Slovaks, the question aims to measure its popularity among respondents compared to brand clothing.

3 How often do you usually buy clothes from local designers/producers? Same aim as the question 2.

4 What concerns you the most when buying clothes? This multiple choice question provides: Price, Quality, Where and under what conditions was the item made, Who sells the item (brand, designer etc.) and Other as responses. As the respondent has to choose only one answer this could help us distinguish the importance of the ‘Where and under what conditions was the item made’ among the respondents.

5 How much do you care about the price when buying an item? On a scale from 1 to 5 (with 5 meaning a lot).

6 How much do you care about the quality when buying an item? On a scale from 1 to 5 (with 5 meaning a lot).

7 How much do you care about the conditions under which an item was made. when buying an item? On a scale from 1 to 5 (with 5 meaning a lot).

8 How much do you care about the designer/brand when buying an item? On a scale from 1 to 5 (with 5 meaning a lot).

9 Are you concerned with where and under what conditions your clothes were made? Yes / No / I do not care about this/ Other

10 Do you know where most of your clothes come from? (Name a country). This qualitative question seeks for knowledge of the worldwide textile industry among the respondents, whether any interesting countries would be named out of ignorance of the issue or not knowing.

11Are you acquainted with problems and conditions of workers in textile industry? Multiple choice of 4 answers: Yes, I do and I am concerned / Yes I do and I am not concerned / No, I don’t know but I am concerned / No I don’t and I am not concerned. This question seeks to find out whether people know about the issue at all and if so whether they are concerned or not.

12 Would you like to get more information in what conditions were your clothes made? Yes / No / Other answers. The aim is to find the overall potential of the campaigning about the issue of worker’s rights.

9http://www.cleanclothes.org/news/press-releases/2014/06/10/stitched-up

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HOW OFTEN DO YOU BUY FROM...?

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Graph 1. How often do you buy brand clothing/second hand shops/local producers? (1 not at all - 5 very often)

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13 If you know about the problem and you are concerned with it, what action would you take individually to tackle this problem? Multiple choice question: I do not want to buy clothes from retailers whose workers work in inhuman conditions / I want to sign a petition on this / I want to share information on this on social networks / None, it is pointless / Would rather buy clothes from second hand shops / Other

14 What do you think about second hand shops? As mentioned in the second question, second hand shops are not popular among Slovaks and this question seeks to find out why it is so: I do not like them, I consider them unhygienic / I do not like them I prefer brand clothing / I like them and regularly buy clothes there / I do not know / Other.

15 Gender seeks to find the connection of the type of gender with different shopping behaviour and/or attitudes towards the issue.

16 Age Group seeks to find the connection of different age groups to specific answers and opinion about the issue researched.10

Survey questionnaires were distributed over three week period March 10 to 24 2014 in Bratislava via personal contact or via email on Google Drive. The survey questionnaire as well as responses of 183 respondents is enclosed in the appendix.

Remarks to the method of the survey and learning from occurred problems:•There was a problem with analysing of the responses as many answered other’ instead of choosing definite answer from provided list.

•It is possible that the used five-point scale made many undecided people tend to mark the middle value of ‘3’, so that they did not need to think much about the answer.

•A question was missed, as: if you are not interested what do you think could make you interested?’ etc.

•Strongly biased towards 19-25 (as much as 152 out of 183) and women what represented a large drawback. This can be explained in particular by the overall higher respondent responsiveness to the online version of the questionnaire – where younger generations were more active. Further, also because of the fact that while doing person-to-person interviews, especially difficult target group were older generations 50 upward (as little as 2 respondents). Their main reason for not taking part in the survey were that they do not want to give their opinion about the subject, or that they have no knowledge or interest in it. Also, from 183 respondents much more female than male respondents were interested in the survey (140 to 43). This is probably because of the fact that this issue is connected to fashion and shopping activities generally preferred by women. Women are also most interested in the fashion industry and generally spend more time shopping.11

SURVEY RESULTS 41 How often do you buy brand clothing – second

hand shops – local producers clothing?In graph 1 it can be seen that second hand shops and local producers as sources of clothing are not chosen very often. As much as 54.1% said that they never buy and 26.2% they buy very rarely at second hand shops; and one third of respondents do not shop at local producers and 43.17% very rarely.

Explanation:•Overall greater availability of the brand and retailers clothing shops and the preferred option of price and quality when buying an item to anything else.12

•Low knowledge of local producers. One of the respondents said: ‘I think there should be more info about local producers’.

•Low popularity of second hand shops.13

12 What do you care about the most when buying an item? Comparable amount of responses cared the most about quality (42%) and price (42%) or the compromise of both (5%) when buying clothes.13 On the question do you like second hand shops: just about nearly 25% likes the shops and buys there, and the rest has different reasons for not buying there or has no opinion on the subject.

10Pilot 50 respondents were filling the questionnaire without this answer, however they comprised of the second age group of 19 – 25 university students.11For example on the scale of 1 to 5 with 5 being very often, on question how often do you buy retailers clothes only 19 men but as much as 57 women answered 4 or 5.

DO YOU KNOW WHERE YOUR CLOTHES CAM FROM?:

23% answered ‘I do not know’.

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2 What do you care the most about?Comparable amount of responses cared the most about quality (42%) and price (42%) or the compromise of both (5%) when buying clothes. Only about 4% cared about the brand, and as little as 0,55% about the conditions under which an items was made.

Graph 2. What do you care about the most when buying an item?

3. How much do you care about the price – quality – conditions under which item was made – brand?

It can be seen on graph 5 (see on page 21), respondents generally tend to care the most about price and quality the most hitting larger numbers where people cared the most so the graphs have an increasing character in both price as well as quality. However, while brand as well as how an item was made is of lesser importance.

4. Do you know where clothes are coming from? Name a country

To this question 45% respondents answered ‘China’, and 23% answered ‘I do not know’. What is also surprising is that even though Bangladesh, India and Pakistan belong to the largest

Quality 41.5Price 42Ratio of quality/price 6.56Conditions under which the item was made 4.37Brand .55Other 4.95

I do not care about that 115Other 2No 25Yes 41

producer of textiles in the worlds after China14, as little as 2% thought about Bangladesh or India and only 1% about Pakistan.

Moreover, almost all Western Europe countries (such as Germany, UK, France, Spain, Italy) were named comparable amount of times. These findings show a huge gap in knowledge about the worldwide textile industry among the respondents.

Also Slovakia, having a considerable part of its manufacturing in textiles was mentioned only once which shows a little knowledge or awareness about the local clothing industry as well.

5. Are you concerned with where and under what conditions were your clothes made?

As can be seen on the graph, as much as 115 respondents that is 62.84% did not care about this at all.

Graph 3. Are you concerned with where and under what conditions your clothes were made?

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HOW MUCH DO YOU CARE ABOUT THE PRICE – QUALITY – CONDITIONS UNDER WHICH ITEM WAS MADE – BRAND?

Graph 4. How often do you buy brand clothing/second hand shops/local producers? (1 not at all - 5 very much)

6. Are you acquainted with problems and conditions of workers in textile industry?

Overall, more than 60% of respondents knew about the problems in the sector and 42% were concerned with it. However, there is still considerable amount of people who did not know about the issue at all: as much as 35%.

14 http://www.businessvibes.com/content/textiles-industry-overview

‘ Yes, I did hear about that but I’m not capable of changing anything.’

‘I think about that but the price is deciding for me.’

‘I have no idea where I would get this kind of information from.’

‘Yes I do, but that does not change anything.’

FROM THE PARTICIPANTS:

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Figure 6. Protest in front of Rana Plaza, photo by Laura Gutierrez, with kind permission of Labour behind the Label

Yes I am concerned but there is nothing to be done 2.73No I did not know and I am not concerned 8.2No I did not know but I am concerned 27.32 Yes I knew but I am not concerned 20.22Yes I knew and I am concerned 41.53

Graph 5. Are you acquainted with problems and conditions of workers in the textile industry?

What is striking is the fact that on the previous question Are you concerned with where and under what conditions were your clothes made 62.84% did not care about this issue at all; whereas on the question Are you acquainted and concerned with problems of the workers in textile industry 42 knew about the problems workers face and where concerned and 27 who did not know but cared about the issue (so that 69% cared about the issue of workers’ rights in textile industry).

A possible explanation for this little paradox can lie in the different character of the questions. Respondents may not think about their clothes deeper than price/quality ratio so that they do not care about the conditions under which they were made. Nevertheless when they are directly asked whether they care about the conditions of textiles workers, so the question

‘I do not know. Maybe it is the only way those people can make their own living, so I have no idea what could be done about that.’

7. If you know about the problem and you are concerned with it, what action would you take individually to tackle this problem? How many of those concerned would take action?

Nearly 42% of respondents (that is 75 people) did know about the problem and were concerned with it. The preferred action of this group included not buying from brands with inhuman conditions (30) or signing a petition (23). The rest included sharing information on social sites, or alternative clothing.

Also as little as 4 responded that they would take no action as it seems pointless and 3 did not know which action they could take.

From the answers it is clear that respondents would like to take an action, but there is a need for a mediator – in a form of an NGO project or campaign that would get them active and positive, get information to them in an easy and comprehensive way – explain the systemic problem of textiles and link it to their day-to-day choices, change their attitudes toward alternatives as second hand or local shopping, list all the action they may take.

has a more humane character, majority states yes, they do care.So here we can see an interesting psychological gap between my clothes and my choices and a distant worker sewing them.

Therefore, also we can see a great role to be played in informing the public about the issue in order to get people think deeper about their consumer choices, and empower them to take action instead of passively and demotivated accepting the information about the problem.

There is a great role to be played by media and campaigns as those who were not acquainted with the problem, 27% were concerned (8% were not15). Also, almost 3% of those who answered were demotivated and felt that nothing could be done about it.

15To those who answered ‘No I did not know and I am not concerned’ was missed a follow up question asking why it is so.

‘I am trying to buy Slovak products in order to support local producers, but I am not that strong willing when buying clothes. However, if I found out that one of the brands has inhuman conditions in its factories, I would not shop there anymore and shared the info with my friend as well.’

‘Governments of home states have to make sure that brands and retailers work with full effort and in a transparent manner towards the implementation of a living wage in their global supply chains.’

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Therefore, informing about the issue – in the form of media, of NGO campaign and popular education are effective and remain to be the most important.

9. What do you think about second hand shops?Generally second hand shops in Slovakia are not very popular. Nearly 25% like the shops and buys there, and the rest have different reasons for not buying there with the main ones including that they are considered to be unhygienic (23%) or people prefer brand clothing (7%). Still, about one third had no opinion about the subject.

In Slovakia, second hand shops were greatly popular during 1990s as early capitalism provided an opportunity to buy cheap Western clothing and since then maintained a stable part among textile supply.16 However, since then also cheap

Chinese clothing or retail clothing became widely available.Also price/quality ratio – by far the most deciding factor in consumer choice – became not vey plausible towards second hand shops either. For example, respondents not buying in those shops stated in the survey that: ‘I do not have time to go around the second shop to find my size etc..’ or ‘Those clothes are pretty worn out and I want new clothes.’

However the advantage of such shops were appreciated by respondents saying that ‘It is ecological’ or that ‘It is fun. I am not going there if I need something. I just look around and if something is interesting I buy it.’17

Therefore, I would propose that in order to better the awareness of consumers making impact on the issue of workers’ rights in the textile industry, it could be of a great help to promote the alternatives to retail clothing in the form of second hand shops and/or local producers as well.

In the form of flea markets, swap shops, or campaign to support local designers and producers, second hand shops are a more ecological way of re-using clothes.

Also, compared to the UK there is no developed kind of charity shops and there is more of an exception even in the capital, Bratislava. So then second hand shops are seen as just another money-making shop without the charitable not for profit agenda behind it as the charity shops have. Not only is it missing out as a possible alternative to shopping, but also people have problems with their own old clothing as there is nowhere they could be simply put and used for cause as in the charity shops.18

CONCLUSION OF THE REPORT 5•Very low amount of information about the issue is to be found in Slovak media. However, this trend can be further improved thanks to strives of the FFF project as it embarks also upon larger PR of the project as well as training journalist into developmental issues in general and in the decent work and worker’s rights in particular.

•There is no significant third sector campaign in general public to raise awareness of the issue. Particularly this is seen to be important if customers are to change their attitude.

•Survey showed that Slovak customers have little knowledge about the issue, but where in general positive about getting more information or taking action.

•It is seen to be necessary to provide Slovak public with ‘success stories’ examples of people taking action in order to get positive attitude towards action and their empowerment. Popular education in form of workshops, discussions, etc. is absolutely vital in this.

RECOMMENDATION FOR ACTIONS 6Slovak factory workers situation in Slovak

8. Would you like to get more information in what conditions were your clothes made? How many of those concerned about the issue want to get more info?

As much as 90% of those who stated that they are concerned about the issue of worker’s rights would like to get more information. Nevertheless, the few who answered otherwise provided interesting explanations:

‘I think about the that but

‘I have no idea where I would get

‘Only if I knew how to help and something would change…’

‘I really do not think that knowing about that would change anything anyway.’

‘I do not think so. I mean I have to wear something anyway! And if it is a good quality for a good price, I do not really care where the item was made.’

- ‘Stitched Up’ report, 2014Figure 7. img.mediacentrum.sk/gallery/630/1989805.jpg

16 http://www.sme.sk/c/6215711/aj-moderatorky-a-manazeri-nosia-oblecenie-zosekaca.html#ixzz34Jyh3KuD17 ibid.18 Few containers have appeared in recent years collecting used clothes, however, they are quite disputed, as their ‘charitable’ piece is missing.

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2 How to shop fairly? Explain the complexity of the problem and link the to our consumer choices:

a Not to boycott the brands and retailers all together but rather think twice of how much to shop there and where – reward bettering companies: who paid compensation etc.

b Choice of shops: alternatives to shops as vintage, swap shopping, second hand and charity shops, flea markets etc. and local clothing. Also better brand clothes than ‘no name’ clothing with no possible check of the labour conditions.

c Empower to take action: The complexity of the textile industry and viable solution lay by the governments, companies and trade unions, but still, it is all about selling and making profits. Therefore, informed and caring consumers are a way to go.

3 Throughout its 40 year history, Scottish Education and Action for Development, devoted to popular education, has provided proofs of this. People are not only empowered, taking action but what is more - the knowledge gives them choice. Informing public about global issues such as this, which are not usually part of general discussion, and especially encouraging to take action helps to avoid frustration, helplessness and promotes democratic thinking.

Appendices: Questionnaire, results provided as needed.

NGOsAccording to the results of the survey, respondents want to take part in a campaign, sign a petition, share information etc. so there is a great potential for campaigning activities that could be conducted by Slovak NGOs. Especially linking the popular retailers in Slovakia to their international wrongdoings, such as campaign ‘H&M stands for Hunger and Malnutrition’.

From the discussion after the documentary film screening and also from the survey it was clear that people want a simple solution to the problem and they want to feel that it made an impact.

Therefore, there is a window opportunity in leafleting, popular education articles or workshops in empowering citizens to get active. For example, CCC informed about planned mobile application where people could see and compare various brands and retailers on how they are doing to improve working conditions in their factories. This provides a simple solution, informs and gives a choice to the customer. At the same time it must be stressed that this does not tackle the structural problem of textile industry, but rather aims to encourage brands and reward their efforts to bettering of the situation.

Popular educationThere are few points that a potential popular education work about the issue of textile workers should focus on:

1 Strong consumer behaviour in Slovakia. There is a need to inform about the real cost of the cheap clothes as well as alternatives to retail and brand clothing.

The situation the Slovak garment workers are in is a difficult one. On one hand they can strike and petition for higher living wages, but at the same time they face the danger of the factory being relocated further East into a country with cheaper labour and losing their job altogether. However, if the system is to be changed and especially to avoide creating more poverty, it is according to the Clean Clothes Campaign researchers necessary to raise legal minimum wage to 60% of the national average wage.

MediaThere is a great role to be played by Slovak media in informing people about the problems worldwide. There was a great stress on the situation in textile factories in Slovakia, but the international side of the problem is not that much discussed, for example according to the survey around 1/3 did not know about the issue at all. This is of an importance especially as Slovakia changed in recent years into developed, aid-giving country but Slovaks still may not be aware of their moral responsibility as consumers.

Also, in order to promote positive attitude to change and taking action, instead of just informing about the wrong doings of large companies and complexity of the problem, it is necessary to share successful stories in order to overcome passivity. Labour behind the Label stated that: ‘Many companies have made progress towards adopting a more open attitude and showing greater willingness to improve conditions in their supply chains. Worker and consumer action has been a key factor in driving this change.’19

19 http://www.labourbehindthelabel.org/about-us/item/624-companies-which-high-street-brands-aregood/bad

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Consumer Behaviour and Worker’s Rights in the Textile Industry: Do Slovaks Care about the Real

Cost of their Clothes?

Daniela Kellerova

Comenius University Bratislava

Scottish Action and Education for Development

November 2014