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As a police commissioner once said when he turned down the twentieth bribe offer he had received that day, "Ethics ain't easy!" All of us are faced by those moments when doing what's right is very different from doing what's easy or what would be the most profitable. That's one of the reasons for a company to have a mission statement or a code of conduct: so that employees understand what's expected of them when they're faced with the choice between right versus easy, ethical versus profitable.

The problem is that so many choices fall into the gray area in between. What do you do when making the ethical choice will almost certainly hurt someone? What if doing something a little bit wrong will help create a very large "right?"

Take a few moments to read the examples below and answer the questions they pose, and you'll see what I mean.

Your co-worker asks you to cover for him so he can sneak out of work early to go to his son's softball game. Do you agree? If he went anyway, would you keep silent?

You're about ready to sign a big new client to a contract worth over $50,000. Your boss is under a lot of pressure to increase sales. He calls you into his office and tells you his job is on the line, and he asks you to include the revenue for your contract in the sales figures for the quarter that ends tomorrow. You know the contract is a sure thing but the client is out of town and cannot possibly sign by tomorrow. What do you do?

The manufacturing cost of the widgets your company makes has dropped by 50%. One of your customers, Sam, tells you he knows this because he is best friends with your company's VP of production and asks you for a discount on his order. Your boss okays the discount. Your other customer, Sue (who is one of your best friends and knows nothing about the drop in manufacturing costs), places the exact same order for widgets as Sam. Do you offer her a similar discount? Do you tell her about the drop in manufacturing costs?

Company policy forbids co-workers to become romantically involved. You go to the same church as someone from another department, and you find yourself becoming attracted to this person. Do you pursue the relationship?

Your best friend is the VP of one of the companies with which your firm does business. You take her out for lunch just to catch up on personal stuff, and you pick up the check. Do you declare this a "business lunch" and submit the receipt for reimbursement?

While in the restroom, you overhear your boss telling a colleague that Bob is going to be laid off at the end of the quarter in about two weeks' time. Bob is a good friend of yours. Do you tell him?

One of the newest salespeople in your division is a real goof-off, never showing up for work on time, distracting other people with his antics and so on. You complain about him to your boss, who tells you the kid is the son of the company president. Your boss instructs you not only to leave the new guy alone but also to make his sales numbers look good by throwing him some no-brainer accounts. What do you do?

Now, just in case you're feeling very virtuous because you know you'd always make the ethical choice in those cases, ask yourself:

Have you ever

. . . lied to your mother? your boss? the IRS?

. . . lied so you wouldn't hurt someone's feelings?

. . . lied to get out of a business or social engagement?

. . . taken a questionable deduction on your income tax?

. . . fudged figures on a report to make the results look better?

. . . taken a sick day when you weren't sick?

. . . lied to a customer ("we sent your order yesterday") or creditor ("the check's in the mail")?

. . . cut corners on quality control?

. . . blamed someone else for something you knew you were partly responsible for?

. . . used any of these phrases: "Everybody does it," "It's the lesser of two evils," "It's only a little white lie," "It doesn't hurt anyone," "Who will know?"

. . . put inappropriate pressure on others?

In the real world, ethics ain't easy. Somehow we need to come up with a way of looking at even the most complicated situations and evaluating them with an eye to what's right-not what will cause the least trouble. We need a basis upon which to build the kind of success that feels good because we know what we're doing represents us at our best.

Corporate Compliance Insights is a wholly owned subsidiary of the global leader in compliance search.

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What Would You Do? Ethical Dilemmas in the Workplace

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All of us are faced by those moments when doing what's right is very different from doing what's easy or what would be the most profitable. Ask yourself what you would do in some of these business situations. Then, ask yourself what you've done.

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Noel Biderman on The Business of Adultery: Radical Entrepreneurship

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Infidelity website AshleyMadison.com founder talks about his affair matchmaking service. Noel Biderman defends his company and explains why what seems like a radical business idea now might not be so in the future.

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It's pretty hard to summon sympathy for the AshleyMadison.com privacy hack if you've ever been the partner wounded by another's affair. The hookup website that made a fortune facilitating "discreet" encounters between those committed elsewhere learned on Monday that a team of hackers have downloaded the entire contents of its office and production domains. This includes the details of more than 33 million affair-seeking users across 30 countries, data that adds to mere names and addresses both photographs and recorded sexual fantasies.

The hackers are calling themselves the "Impact Team" and they're demanding Ashley Madison and its partner site Established Men close down. The hack has been verified by Avid Life Media, Ashley Madison's corporate owners, and the Impact Team has already published some data online. While ALM has successfully removed much of it, the hackers are promising far more to come.

One imagines an actual cloud may yet be forming from the anxious perspiration of 33 million people sweating on how the hack unfolds. Simultaneously, those who've ever been cheated on may presently be experiencing an equal but opposite intensity of emotion.

A karmic comeuppance seems due in particular to ALM, whose trade, practice and marketing philosophy have done very little to endear them to the non-affair-seeking public. Founder Noel Biderman insists that his company does not promote infidelity, despite advertising Ashley Madison under the slogan, "Life is short. Have an Affair."

"We're just a platform," Biderman has said. "No website or 30-second ad is going to convince anyone to cheat." This may very well be true but it doesn't really explain its marketing strategy that courts controversy in order to generate press coverage.

In addition to rejected attempts to purchase naming rights for airports in cash-strapped American cities, ALM's shtick has included: a zombie-and-domestic-violence themed television ad that failed to meet advertising standards in the UK; an American billboard mocking Hillary Clinton; and ads fat-shaming plus-sized women as a justification for infidelity. When a plus-sized model named Jacqueline publicly criticised the company's use of her image to fat-shame, ALM's response was extraordinary: "The best thing that could've happened to this woman is that we used her in our ad."

Morally dubious behaviour is not just the company's unique selling point, but emerges as something of a theme in its business practices. Ashley Madison's guarantee "that you will successfully find what you're looking for or we'll give you your money back" is restricted by small-print conditions predicated on the purchase of premium packages and gifts sold through the site, in addition to paid chat sessions and onerous reporting obligations.

On a website where usage is 70% male, the illusion of available women is sustained by the company's habit of delivering users computer-generated messages from fake profiles that "are NOT conspicuously identified as such," but for which they may charge users to respond to " for entertainment purposes ". But what has incited the vengeance of the Impact Team is the company's promise of a "full delete" service of user profiles for around US$19, that in fact, never takes place.

"Full Delete netted ALM $1.7m in revenue in 2014," wrote the hackers, who allege names, addresses and credit card details are never scrubbed, "It's also a complete lie."

It's easy enough to suggest in these circumstances that a company that makes its money from encouraging duplicity and betrayal is somewhat likely to reflect these values in its operations, and that maybe users should have seen this coming.

But as enjoyable as schadenfreude is to the scorned, the mass scale of the hack attack has to be recognised for what it is: a gross invasion of privacy. Whatever is discussed by whoever is on that site, the personal content now in the possession of the hackers is the consented sexual conversations of adults to which no one else was invited, and mocking their situation amounts to victim-blaming.

The duplicities of cheating partners might be reprehensible - but the complexities of human relations are such that no hacker or public audience has any right to stand in moral judgement of Ashley Madison's 33 million account holders. An anonymous commenter on one website spoke of using Ashley Madison's services "just so (I) won't die feeling so unloved", and an investigation by a relationships writer concluded users "just wanted to feel what they used to feel".

These are the intimacies seized by the hackers. For all ALM's faults, in exposing Ashley Madison's lack of privacy protections in this way, the Impact Team have threatened that very privacy with more destructive potential than that company ever has. Ashley Madison may be a morally dubious enterprise, and the emotional wreckage left by lies within relationships keenly felt ... but if we don't condemn this attack on privacy, the moral fault here is our own.

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It hurts, but I'm going to defend Ashley Madison and 33 million adulterers | Van Badham

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It's pretty hard to summon sympathy for the AshleyMadison.com privacy hack if you've ever been the partner wounded by another's affair. The hookup website that made a fortune facilitating "discreet" encounters between those committed elsewhere learned on Monday that a team of hackers have downloaded the entire contents of its office and production domains.

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Over the weekend, the dating site for people seeking to have an affair, AshleyMadison, was hacked. With the hackers threatening to release the personal details and sexual fantasies of the site's more than 37 million users, all eyes have been on AhsleyMadison and its parent company, Avid Life Media - and now we're hearing more about what it's like on the inside.

Many people think AshleyMadison provides an unethical service, helping married people cheat on their spouses. After all, its registered tag-line is "Life is short. Have an affair."

But one former employee recently took to Reddit to defend the company she once worked for, revealing what it's like to work at the dating site.

According to her introduction, she worked as a department manager for AshleyMadison from 2008-2013. This fact was supposedly verified by Reddit's moderators.

Sadly, the Q&A thread as a whole doesn't give us any new information about the recent hack. It does, however, provide interesting context about a company many think to be immoral.

This anonymous person had a very positive experience at the company. She went so far as to call it "one of the best companies I've ever worked for."

Later in the thread, she defended the core service AshleyMadison offers: "We were providing a service, plain and simple. Not everyone using the site was married and not everyone was hiding their profiles from spouses ... Because every person's story was different, I could never judge the company for the actions of thousands of people."

The company, however, was a frequent target of ire. "There used to be many sites dedicated to bringing us down," the poster wrote. Many of them, she said, were jilted lovers - predominately women. "Groups of women would band together and 'help' women catch their husbands on the site," she wrote.

Things would sometimes turn scary. "We'd receive death threats constantly," said the poster. According to her, they generally came from two types of people: "Wives who caught their husbands using the site OR just random religious crazies."

As for the actual hack, this former employee offered little information about what did or did not happen. One thing she did say, however, is that the "full delete" service - which the hackers claim doesn't work as advertised - actually does work. "The thing is," she wrote, "it actually DOES wipe you entirely form the system."

She goes so far to call it "one of the best features the site introduced." So why were the hackers claiming otherwise? Her hypothesis is that perhaps people with multiple accounts still had remnants of their financials still on ALM's servers due to other lingering accounts.

In her estimation, AshleyMadison sets itself apart from other dating sites because of its privacy. Everyone who is hired is given rigorous privacy and security training, and it was their job "to make sure anyone who joined the site could enjoy it without fear of being caught."

And yet, the company is in hot water today due to a potential security slip-up, with a recent report claiming the hack could wind up costing AshleyMadison $US200 million as it was planning an IPO.

While the Reddit AMA didn't bring us any closer to knowing how or why the hack happened, it did help paint the controversial company in a new light. Many Redditors cried foul about this AMA, calling it an inside job and an "obvious PR move."

The poster demurred, "I mean we had a serious problem with people leaving their leftover food in the communal fridge for way too long but that's really the extent of 'company drama.'"

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A former employee of the recently hacked dating website for cheaters says it's 'one of the best companies I've ever worked for'

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Over the weekend, the dating site for people seeking to have an affair, AshleyMadison, was hacked. With the hackers threatening to release the personal details and sexual fantasies of the site's more than 37 million users, all eyes have been on AhsleyMadison and its parent company, Avid Life Media - and now we're hearing more about what it's like on the inside.

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Getting a deal across the line and massaging financial reports is becoming more important to many in corporate Australia than being ethical.

Employees at major companies believe bribery and corrupt activity has increased because of tough economic conditions and increased competition, according to the 2017 EY Asia-Pacific Fraud Survey.

Almost a third (32%) of Australian respondents to the EY survey say slow economic growth coupled with growing pressure to exceed the business bottom line is taking its toll on ethical conduct.

More than a quarter (27%) believe it is common practice in their industry or sector to use bribery to win contracts and 31% believe Australian companies often report financial performance as better than it is.

"What's most concerning for Australian business is the overwhelming belief that achieving economic targets trumps the need for ethical behaviour," says Rob Locke, EY's Oceania managing partner, Fraud Investigation and Dispute Services.

The survey revealed that despite wanting to work for ethical organisations, 17% believe it is justified to deliberately misstate a company's financial performance to meet financial targets.

Another 20% believe it is justified to amend financial reports to provide a more positive outlook on results.

"CEOs, boards and senior management not only play an integral role in setting compliance policies but have a responsibility to ensure the wider company is following them," says Locke.

"With 43% of Australian respondents believing people with questionable ethical practices are seen to be promoted, Australian business leaders need to recognise that perception is reality when it comes to ethical conduct."

The EY survey of 1,698 employees of multinational corporations and domestic companies was conducted between November 2016 and February 2017 in Australia, mainland China, Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, Japan, South Korea, Malaysia, New Zealand, the Philippines, Singapore, Taiwan, Thailand, and Vietnam.

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Business ethics are crumbling in Australia as economic growth slows

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Getting a deal across the line and massaging financial reports is becoming more important to many in corporate Australia than being ethical. Employees at major companies believe bribery and corrupt activity has increased because of tough economic conditions and increased competition, according to the 2017 EY Asia-Pacific Fraud Survey.

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When a former client's secretary was arrested for embezzlement years before his own crimes were uncovered, Bernie Madoff commented to his own secretary, "Well, you know what happens is, it starts out with you taking a little bit, maybe a few hundred, a few thousand. You get comfortable with that, and before you know it, it snowballs into something big."

We now know that Madoff's Ponzi scheme started when he engaged in misreporting to cover relatively small financial losses. Over a 15-year period, the scam grew steadily, eventually ballooning to $65 billion, even as regulators and investors failed to notice the warning signs.

Many of the biggest business scandals of recent years - including the News of the World phone hacking scandal, billions in rogue trading losses at UBS, and the collapse of Enron - have followed a similar pattern: The ethical behavior of those involved eroded over time.

Few of us will ever descend as deeply into crime as Bernard Madoff, yet we all are vulnerable to the same slippery slope. We are likely to begin with small indiscretions such as taking home office supplies, exaggerating mileage statements, or miscategorizing a personal meal in a restaurant as business-related. Nearly three-quarter of the employees who responded to one survey reported that they had observed unethical or illegal behavior by coworkers in the past year.

"The safest road to Hell is the gradual one - the gentle slope, soft underfoot, without sudden turnings, without milestones, without signposts," wrote C. S. Lewis. Our research backs up both Lewis's intuition and the anecdotal evidence: People often start their misconduct with small transgressions and then slide down a slippery slope.

Two of us (Dave, Lisa, and our team) found that people who are faced with growing opportunities to behave unethically are much more likely to rationalize this conduct than those who are presented with an abrupt change. We predicted that if we could get people to cheat a little in one round, they might be willing to cheat a bit more in another round, and finally cheat "big" in a third round.

This is precisely what we found: When given a series of problem-solving tasks, 50% of our subjects cheated to earn $.25 per problem in the first round, and 60% cheated to earn $2.50 per problem in the final round. However, the people in the abrupt change group who could not cheat during the first two rounds were much less willing to cheat big for $2.50 per problem during the final round (only about 30% did).

This suggests that employees might look at their slightly exaggerated mileage statements as "rounding up." But rationalizing minor indiscretions inevitably influences how they view progressively worse behaviors and may lead them to commit bigger offenses (e.g., billing their employers for personal travel expenses) that they initially would not have considered.

To make matters worse, people are more likely to overlook the unethical behavior of others when it deteriorates gradually over time. For example, one of us (Francesca) found, with colleague Max Bazerman, that people who played the role of auditors in a simulated auditing task were much less likely to report those who gradually inflated their numbers over time than those who made more abrupt changes all at once, even though the level of inflation was eventually the same.

Unfortunately, the assumption that unethical workplace behavior is the product of a few bad apples has blinded many organizations to the fact that we all can be negatively influenced by situational forces, even when we care a great deal about honesty. Yet approaches to warding off the slippery-slope problem need not to be drastic. In their book Nudge: Improving Decisions about Health, Wealth, and Happiness, Richard Thaler and Cass Sunstein illustrate how a small and unobtrusive nudge in the right direction can lead people to eat better, save more for retirement, and conserve energy.

Our research similarly indicates that ethical nudges can help people avoid the types of indiscretions that might start them down the slippery slope. For example, in a study conducted with a major U.S. insurance company, Francesca and colleagues found that customers who signed the statement "I promise that the information I am providing is true" prior to reporting their annual mileage - that is, at the top of the page - were significantly more honest in their reporting compared to those who reported first and signed at the bottom of the page.

In a different study, Dave and Lisa found that even subconsciously exposing people to ethical content increased their moral awareness and prompted more ethical decisions. Perhaps with this in mind, some organizations have incorporated ethical nudges into images, symbols, stories, and slogans. For example, the University of Arizona's Eller College of Management recently created posters featuring the image of a fire alarm to call attention to cheating. And at International Paper, employees are given a wallet card with a set of ethics-related questions to consider when making business decisions.

When moral standards are unclear or unenforced, it's easy for employees to feel emboldened to engage in questionable behaviors that are readily rationalized. Environments that nudge employees in the right direction, and managers who immediately identify and address problems, can stop ethical breaches before they spiral out of control.

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When a former client's secretary was arrested for embezzlement years before his own crimes were uncovered, Bernie Madoff commented to his own secretary, "Well, you know what happens is, it starts out with you taking a little bit, maybe a few hundred, a few thousand.

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The recession is having an effect on the pressures that employees feel to behave unethically, a new survey from the Institute of Business Ethics has found.

The IBE's ethics at work survey, which was last carried out in 2008, asks employees about their attitudes to ethical issues in the workplace, their perceptions regarding ethical practices in their organisations and what formal assistance on ethical matters their organisations provide for them.

Encouragingly, the majority of British (84%) and mainland European (77%) employees say that honesty is practiced "always or frequently" in their organisation.

Although the proportion of British full-time workers who say they have felt pressure to compromise their organisation's ethical standards remains similar to 2008 (9% and 11% respectively), as does the prevalence of an unethical culture (18%), British employees seem to be significantly more likely to experience certain types of pressure to behave unethically than in previous years. The most common of these include meeting unrealistic business objectives or targets (19%) and being asked to take short cuts (14%).

Wanting to help their organisation survive was mentioned for the first time as a source of pressure (7%), an indication that the recession is taking its toll on ethical standards.

Of the fifth of British employees who have been aware of misconduct in their organisation in the last year, only half of these (51%) say they have reported it. Similarly, of the quarter (28%) of mainland European employees who said they had been aware of misconduct, only half raised their concerns.

Attitudes of indifference ("It's none of my business") and the belief that no corrective action would be taken, deter employees who are aware of misconduct from raising their concerns, the survey found. It's clear that organisations need to work harder at communicating the importance of speaking up, and supporting staff who do.

While it's encouraging that employees feel they work in ethical companies, a continued recession and with it the pressure to act unethically, could see businesses at risk of suffering reputation hits, or worse.

No 'lone gunmen' in business ethics

In business ethics, there are no lone gunmen - the theory that integrity failures are caused by just one person behaving badly. UBS was fined £29.7m last month by the FSA for failures in its systems and controls that allowed former employee Kweku Adoboli to conduct Britain's biggest bank fraud. Integrity crises are usually the result of a gradual erosion in behaviour over time, which develop into an unethical culture, rather than one person acting on their own while everyone else stands by, powerless.

While we celebrate that the majority feel their workplace is one where honesty is practiced, this is undermined by the statistic that a third of those in managerial or supervisory roles in British organisations perceive "petty fiddling" as inevitable.

But why fret about a few biros and A4 pads missing from the stationery cupboard when there are bigger risks like bribery and corruption and health and safety to mitigate against?

Consider the broken windows theory: a building is vandalised with a few broken windows. If the windows are not repaired, the vandals break a few more; eventually the building is broken into and squatters move in. The theory is that petty crimes, if unaddressed, create a culture which leads to larger ones.

New York's Mayor, Rudy Giuliani, put this theory to practical use in his zero-tolerance of petty crimes such as vandalism in New York. The result was turning around a city that once seemed ungovernable, particularly when it came to crime. Overall crime rates dropped by 44% to their lowest in more than a generation, and the city's murder rate went down by 70%. Petty fiddling at work is a little like those broken windows.

New research by Dr Muel Kaptein of the Rotterdam School Of Management into why good people do bad things may give cause for concern. Kaptein cites "acceptance of small theft" as something which may indicate a culture susceptible to integrity failure. If small thefts of highlighter pens are ignored, then so are slightly larger ones, like over-claiming expenses or accepting unauthorised business gifts. It doesn't take long for people to begin pushing those limits, and before long you have a large scale integrity failure on your hands.

The ethics at work survey found that just under half of the UK's full-time workforce thinks it's acceptable to take pencils and pens (41%) and make personal phone calls (45%) from work and about a third (30%) said it was OK to post personal mail from work. A quarter think it is acceptable to use the internet in work time and a fifth of British employees feel it is acceptable to "take a sicky". The survey also showed that there is little difference in attitudes between employees and managers.

If the tone is set by managers that these small ethical breaches are unacceptable, then perhaps the tone and culture will follow. Most people do not start out to be malicious, or to harm the organisation or defraud it - they are just trying to do their job.

But the survey found that employees in organisations that provide ethics training are significantly less likely to say they have felt pressured to compromise ethical standards and are also significantly more likely to report misconduct of which they are aware. The message is clear: it is up to organisations to make sure their staff have the tools to do their jobs in an ethical way.

Simon Webley is research director at the Institute of Business Ethics. The Employee Views of Ethics at Work: 2012 British Survey and Employee Views of Ethics at Work: 2012 Continental Europe Survey are both available as free downloads from www.ibe.org.uk
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Business ethics survey shows increased pressures at work

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The recession is having an effect on the pressures that employees feel to behave unethically, a new survey from the Institute of Business Ethics has found. The IBE's ethics at work survey, which was last carried out in 2008, asks employees about their attitudes to ethical issues in the workplace, their perceptions regarding ethical practices in their organisations and what formal assistance on ethical matters their organisations provide for them.

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The Politics of Workers Rights Protection International Labour Organisation and Promotion of Labour Rights in Manufacturing Industry in Nigeria

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How to Reduce Ethics and Compliance Risk

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How to Reduce Ethics and Compliance Risk

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This article highlights 5 main points that can help reduce the risk of compromise ethics in an organisation .. might be helpful for the last part of the presentation

1. Honestly assess your needs and resources.

2. Establish a strong foundation.

3. Build a culture of integrity -- from the top down.

4. Keep a "values focus" in moments big and small.

5. Re-evaluate and revise as needed.

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Five Keys to Reducing Ethics and Compliance Risk - Ethics & Compliance Initiative (ECI)

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You can protect your company's reputation and increase employee engagement by creating a workplace where ethical conduct is the norm. Reduce ethics risk by taking these five key steps.

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The NAM provides facts about manufacturing and U.S. manufacturing strategy infor...

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I believe this is a turning point in the industry –
soon companies will be judged just as much on
ethical business as they will on growth and revenue"

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Fairness and social good are dominant. Businesses with a heart and artisans thrive in a bustling andcreative market with a strong emphasis on ethics and fairness.

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Exploitation of Portugese Children in the Textile, Shoe Industry

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Exploitation of Portugese Children in the Textile, Shoe Industry

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The way your Apple products are made is a reflection of our values. Values that include the people in our supply chain and the planet.

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The resource you are accessing has been identified as secure content.

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Read this article to learn about Advantages and Disadvantages of Large-Scale Production!

Advantage of Large-Scale Production:

The modern factory system, with its extensive use of machinery and division of labour, is responsible for large-scale production.
The following are its chief advantages: (i) Economy of Specialized and Up-to-date Machinery:
There is a large scope for the use of machinery which results in lower costs. A large producer can install an up-to-date and expensive machinery. He can also have his own repairing arrangement. Specialized machinery can be employed for each job. The result is that production is very economical. A small producer with a small market cannot keep the machinery continuously working. Keeping it idle is uneconomical. A large producer can work it continuously and reap the resulting economies.
(ii) Economy of Labour:
In a big concern, there is ample scope for division of labour. Specialized labour produces a larger output and of better quality. It is only in a large business that every person can be put on the job that he can best perform. The large-scale producer thus gets the best out of every person he employs.
(iii) Economies of Bulk buying and selling:
While purchasing raw material and other accessories, a big business can secure specially favourable terms on account of its large custom. Whine selling its goods, it can attract customers by producing a greater variety and by ensuring prompt execution of orders. Even a small rate of profit results in larger sales and higher net profits in a large-scale business.
(iv) Economies of Overhead Charges:
The expenses of administration and distribution per unit of production in a big business are much less. Interest, the pay bill, and other overhead charges are the same whether production is large or small. Thus, the same amount of expenditure being distributed over a larger output results in a lower cost per unit.
(v) Economy in Rent:
A large-scale producer makes a saving in rent too. If the same factory is made to produce a large quantity of goods, the same amount of rent is divided over a large output. This means that the cost per unit in respect of rent comes to a much smaller amount.
(vi) Experiments and Research:
A large concern can afford to spend liberally on research and experiments. It is well known that, in the long run, these expenses more than repay. Successful research may lead to the discovery of a cheaper process. This may bring a large profit. Only a large-scale business can incur such expenditure.
(vii) Advertisement and Salesmanship:
A big concern can afford to spend large amounts of money on advertisement and salesmanship. Ultimately they do bear fruit. Also, the amount of money spent on advertisement per unit comes to a low figure when production is on a large scale. The salesman can make a careful study of individual markets and thus acquire a hold on new markets or strengthen it on the old ones. Thus a large-scale producer has a greater competitive strength.
(viii) Utilization of By-products:
A big business will not have to throw away any of its by-products or waste products. It will be able to make an economical use of them. A small sugar factory has to throw away the molasses, whereas a big concern can turn it into power-alcohol. By utilising by-products, it can lower the cost of production.
(ix) Facing Adversity:
A big business can show better resistance in times of adversity. It has much larger resources. Losses can be easily borne. A small concern will simply collapse under such a strain.
(x) Cheap Credit:
A large business can secure credit facilities at cheap rates. Its credit in the money market is high and the banks are only too willing to give advances. Low cost of credit reduces cost of production.

These are some of the advantages that a large-scale business has over a small-scale business. It can produce better goods at lower cost. But let us see the other side.

Disadvantages of Large-scale Production:

Large-scale production is not without its disadvantages.
Some of these disadvantages are: (i) Less Supervision:
A large-scale producer cannot pay full attention to every detail. Costs often rise on account of the dishonesty of employees or waste of material by them. This is due to the lack of supervision. Owing to laxity of control, costs of production will go up.
(ii) Individual Tastes Ignored:
Large-scale production is a mass production or standardised production. Goods of uniform quality are turned out irrespective of the requirements of individual customers. Individual tastes are not, therefore, satisfied. This results in a loss of customers.
(iii) Absence of Personal Element:
A large scale business is generally managed by paid employees. The owner is usually absent. The sympathy and personal touch, which ought to exist between the master and the men, are missing, Frequent misunderstandings lead to strikes and lockouts. This is positively harmful to the business.
(iv) Possibility of Depression:
Large-scale production may result in overproduction. Production may exceed demand and cause depression and unemployment. It is not always easy or profitable to dispose of a large output.
(v) Dependence on Foreign Markets:
A large-scale producer has generally to depend on foreign markets. The foreign markets may be cut off by war or some other upheaval. This makes the business risky.
(vi) Cut-throat Competition:
Large-scale producers must fight for markets. There is wasteful competition which does no good to society or to businessmen. Many promising businesses are ruined.
(vii) International Complications and War:
When the large-scale producers operate on an international scale, their interests clash either on the score of markets or of materials. These complications sometimes lead to armed conflicts. Many modern wars arose on account of scramble for materials and markets.
(viii) Less Adaptability:
A large-scale producing unit finds it very difficult to switch on from one type of production to another. In a depression, small-scale firms move away from declining trades to flourishing ones easily. In this way they are able to avoid losses. This adaptability is lacking in a big business.

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Advantages and Disadvantages of Large-Scale Production

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ADVERTISEMENTS: Read this article to learn about Advantages and Disadvantages of Large-Scale Production! Advantage of Large-Scale Production: The modern factory system, with its extensive use of machinery and division of labour, is responsible for large-scale production. The following are its chief advantages: ADVERTISEMENTS: (i) Economy of Specialized and Up-to-date Machinery: There is a large scope ...

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Mass production is a way of manufacturing things en masse (and for the masses) that takes the initiative for choosing products out of the hands of the consumer and puts it into the hands of the manufacturer. Before mass-production methods were introduced, producers made things to order. They did not, by and large, manufacture things in the vague hope of selling them at some later date. They made things when they knew they had a customer.

In Elizabethan times, shops were not stuffed with goods waiting for buyers. They were full of craftsmen waiting to fulfil orders. With mass-production methods, manufacturers produce things in large quantities without having orders for them in advance. They worry about selling them later-the price they pay for enjoying economies of scale in the manufacturing process.

Mass production is based on the principles of specialisation and division of labour as first described by Adam Smith in "The Wealth of Nations" in 1776, and as first practised in places like Eli Whitney's gun factory in America in the 1790s. Mass-production methods use highly skilled labour to design products and to set up production systems, and highly unskilled labour to produce standardised components and assemble them (with the help of specialised machinery). The early businesses that used such methods were able to take workers directly out of agricultural labour on the land and on to the factory floor. No significant retraining was required.

The parts used in mass production are often manufactured elsewhere and then put together on a moving production facility known as an assembly line. The result is a standardised product made in a fairly small number of varieties, produced at low cost and of mediocre quality. The work is repetitive, and the workers are regarded as a variable cost to be taken on or laid off as demand dictates. In factories that are designed on the principles of mass production, stopping an assembly line to correct a problem at any one point stops work at all points.

The seminal event in the history of mass production was the appearance of the Model T automobile which, to quote its manufacturer, the Ford Motor Company, "chugged into history on October 1st 1908". Henry Ford himself called it the "universal car", and it became so popular that, by the end of 1913, Ford was making half of all the cars produced in the United States.

To keep up with demand, says Ford's official record of events:

[The company] initiated mass production in the factory. Mr Ford reasoned that with each worker remaining in one assigned place, with one specific task to do, the automobile would take shape more quickly as it moved from section to section and countless man-hours would be saved. To test the theory, a chassis was dragged by rope and windlass along the floor of the Highland Park, Michigan, plant in the summer of 1913. Modern mass production was born! Eventually, Model Ts were rolling off the assembly lines at the rate of one every 10 seconds of each working day.

The moving assembly line was the start of an industrial revolution. In the 19 years that the Model T was in production, over 15m cars were produced and sold in the United States alone. Ford became an industrial complex that was the envy of every industrialist in the world.

In Innovation in Marketing, Theodore Levitt gave an alternative view of the Ford saga:

[Henry Ford's real genius] was marketing. We think he was able to cut his selling price and therefore sell millions of $500 cars because his invention of the assembly line had reduced the costs. Actually he invented the assembly line because he had concluded that at $500 he could sell millions of cars. Mass production was the result, not the cause of his low prices.

Not until the Japanese introduced techniques such as just-in-time did manufacturing industry again experience such a dramatic change. And not until the late 20th century did the development of the internet make it seem possible that the initiative in the buyer/seller relationship would shift back, out of the hands of manufacturers and into the hands of consumers.
Further reading
Ford, H., "My Life and Work", Doubleday, Page & Co, 1922; Arno Press, 1973

Levitt, T., "Innovation in Marketing", McGraw-Hill, 1962

Smith, A., "The Wealth of Nations", 1776
More management ideas
This article is adapted from "The Economist Guide to Management Ideas and Gurus", by Tim Hindle (Profile Books; 322 pages; £20). The guide has the low-down on over 100 of the most influential business-management ideas and more than 50 of the world's most influential management thinkers. To buy this book, please visit our online shop.

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Mass production is a way of manufacturing things en masse (and for the masses) that takes the initiative for choosing products out of the hands of the consumer and puts it into the hands of the manufacturer. Before mass-production methods were introduced, producers made things to order.

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Strategic policy revisited The origins of mass production in the motor industry of Argentina Korea and Spain 1945 87

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For the past decade the Scottsdale, Arizona-based Ethisphere Institute - an organization focused on gauging ethical business practices - has put out a list of the "World's Most Ethical Companies." This week the firm announced its 2016 honorees-firms it feels represent some of the best the international business world has to offer. (See full list below.)

This year Ethisphere's roster includes 131 companies from 21 countries, representing 45 industries. The list includes 14 10-time honorees and 13 first-time honorees.

The overall goal of Ethisphere's rankings are to reward organizations with good practices and offer a model - and actionable advice - on how corporate entities should conduct themselves, says chief marketing and strategy officer, Tia Smallwood. "The papers are filled with scandals and companies that made judgment errors, that made policy errors or that don't have good practices in place to handle things like non-retaliation or transparency or open reporting, or have had a crisis and handled it poorly," she said. "But there a lot of companies that are really trying to do things the right way."

Ethisphere Institute's annual ranking is made up of companies that have submitted to be vetted for the chance to become an honoree. Submissions also come with a fee attached - $1,000 for companies generating less than $500 million revenue and $1,500 for those making more. Some companies that submit do so not to become honorees but to glean how they might improve their own organizational ethics moving forward.
The Methodology
Companies in the running are asked 180 questions to form Ethisphere's proprietary " Ethics Quotient" score-part of a vetting process that evaluates them in categories including ethics and compliance programs, corporate citizenship and responsibility, culture of ethics, governance, and leadership, innovation and reputation. Answering the many queries and compiling accompanying data to complete the submission can take a month, says Smallwood.

Once all the information is in, Ethisphere's staff - with help from its panel of advisers - verify as much as is possible through research, executive interviews, perusing financial filings and looking through reports from online sources and news reports. Analysts research each company's history of litigation, reputation, and ethical track record. Industry, size, geographic location, and other factors, are all taken into consideration.

Ethisphere rejects companies that have significant legal charges pending and won't consider firms that deal in alcohol, tobacco or firearms.

Notable call-outs this year are firms that have been honored every year of the list's existence. Those include Aflac, Fluor Corporation, GE, Kao Corporation (Japan), Milliken & Company, Starbucks and UPS.
2016's Most Ethical Companies List

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For the past decade the Scottsdale, Arizona-based Ethisphere Institute - an organization focused on gauging ethical business practices - has put out a list of the "World's Most Ethical Companies." This week the firm announced its 2016 honorees-firms it feels represent some of the best the international business world has [...]

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Australian contextual factors (PESTLE analysis)

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Australian contextual factors (PESTLE analysis)

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Submitted on Wed 04/10/2017

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Fashion Factories Undercover (Documentary) - Real Stories

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Beyond the crumbling walls of sweatshops we find out the true cost of fashion. It's April 23rd 2013, a busy commercial building in Dhaka, Bangladesh towers over thousands of workers, many of them children. As they toil away in a cramped sweatshop the force of the eight-storey building collapses on to them, killing more than a 1,000 people and permanently disfiguring a further 2,500.

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Do we change it?   Ethical fashion documentary [English]

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Documentary about ethical fashion Talks with: Mantis World, Greenpeace, Textile Exchange, Ananda Pascual, Pweye, Lohada, Fundación Emotiva, Down Toledo, Sunflaj, Nómada Market www.zimoneda.com www.dowechangeit.wordpress.com Genre: Documentary, Social Year 2015 Country: España Locations: Spain, Tanzania, UK Duration: 53 min Directed & Produced by: Carlos Isabel La Moneda Music: Martín Laude, Carlos Isabel

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2nd year University of the Arts London project to produce a short film campaigning environmental issues in association with Green Week. We chose to focus on the social and environmental impacts of the fashion industry. This video explores ethical fashion.

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The New Economy interviews Mahesh Amalean, Chairman of MAS Holdings, on helping women become better business leaders

MAS Holdings has enjoyed 25 years of success thanks to its originality and creativity. Its manufacturing capability, good ethics and sustainable focus continues to attract premium brands and retailers to the company. Mahesh Amalean explains how sustainability has been at the core of the business since its inception, and how empowering MAS Holdings' female employees has added value to the company, as well as to Sri Lanka's communities.
The New Economy: Tell me how MAS holdings has embedded this culture of new thinking to the business?
Mahes Amalean: MAS Holdings right from the inception has differentiated itself by really looking at manufacturing products that were different to what the industry really told them. We decided to embark on manufacturing intimate apparel when the rest of the industry really were manufacturing casual wear. So we started this new thinking of differentiation right from the inception. Another piece to that differentiation is that we entered into strategic relationship with customers and suppliers who are best in class and brought home to Sri Lanka world class technology. We also brought professionals to manage our business, which is very different to how the apparel industry was managed in the country. and what we did was we gave them a few guidelines on the basic principals and values and business ethics that we believed we wanted ingrained in each one of them. and we put that in place and then left them alone to really be entrepreneurial and to think differently and to let them grow the business. So it really started right from the inception of our business.
The New Economy: You've been recognised for your work empowering women so why is female empowerment important and what have you achieved so far?
Mahes Amalean: In our business we employ fifty eight thousand people and after which almost ninety percent of those employed with us are women. So empowering women and adding value to them became an integral part of our work that we do. The program that we put in place is called women go beyond program and the program was designed so that they can be better leaders in the business and at the same time enhance their soft skills like motivation skills, like planning skills, and leadership skills. So we've done that and through that they have contributed enormously to the company and at the same time contributed significantly to their communities.
The New Economy: You're also committed to environmental sustainability as soon in your Intimates Thurulie plant. tell us more.
Mahes Amalean: Our drive for sustainability which really started with being frugal with how we use either the environment or even funds for that matter develop the business was really enhanced by a program that one of our customers, Marks & Spencer, put in place. And in their program one of the activities was to set up an eco friendly carbon neutral manufacturing plant to produce intimate apparel. So together we established a plant which we call Thurulie, in Sri Lanka, which is the first new packingham lead certified intimate apparel manufacturing plant in the world.
The New Economy: and you also have a program to educate students about sustainability?
Mahes Amalean: The sustainability program that we took the students in the communities where our plants are held is called the eco go beyond programme and through that programme we have been able to impact almost seventeen thousand five hundred students in the last five years and this program is basically put in place in order to really impact the thinking and the behaviour and the actions of the youth of tomorrow. And getting them to understand the importance of sustainability and the importance of taking care of the environment as much as the importance of education and health.
The New Economy: How else do you support the communities that you work in?
Mahes Amalean: All our manufacturing is based in rural Sri Lanka and our manufacturing actually has been set up in such a way that we take work to the work force instead of bringing the workforce to work. And by doing that we have been able to ensure the social economic balance of the communities. When you go out and establish a plant in the community, you employ the youth of the community. Whilst the community really appreciates what you have done in creating employment in that area, you really become a citizen of that community when you do more than that. you contribute to some of the communities needs. Sometimes there are needs in the field of health, in upgrading schools, in upgrading community centres. So when you do all those things as you continue to develop and grow your business the community begin to see the value that you bring, not only to the youth but also to the rest of the community. And that's when you become really invited to be a citizen of the community.
The New Economy: So finally tell us about the growth plans, your vision 2020 program and your corporate strategy over the next few years?
Mahes Amalean: Our thinking is that we would like to take our business international, and become a global company. And by 2020, actually double the size of our business. We are a billion dollar company right now, and we see ourselves growing to become a 2 billion dollar company. By doubling the core of our business, and also strengthening our portfolio businesses by adding agencies in the field of information technology and brands.
The New Economy: Mahesh, Thank you
Mahes Amalean: Well thank you very much, I really enjoyed this discussion, thank you

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Mahesh Amalean on female empowerment | MAS Holdings

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The New Economy interviews Mahesh Amalean, Chairman of MAS Holdings, on helping women become better business leaders MAS Holdings has enjoyed 25 years of success thanks to its originality and creativity. Its manufacturing capability, good ethics and sustainable focus continues to attract premium brands and retailers to the company.

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Human Rights and Business Dilemmas Forum - Case studies

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MAS has won a number of awards for its responsible employment practices, including the American Apparel and Footwear Association's 'Excellence in Social Responsibility' award in 2005, and the Nike Award for Outstanding Performance in Innovation, Regional Product Development, Quality and Corporate Social Responsibility in 2006.

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10:00 talking about China

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How to Engage with Ethical Fashion | Clara Vuletich | TEDxSydney

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2016 average wage of China 's manufacturing industry

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2016 average wage of China 's manufacturing industry

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2016年中国制造业平均工资公布-全球纺织网资讯中心

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国家统计局5月27日公布了2016年平均工资数据，全部一套表平台被调查单位就业人员年平均工资为57394元，比2015年增长7.0%。信息传输、软件和信息技

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The Ethical Fashion Forum (EFF) is a not for profit network focusing upon social and environmental sustainability in the fashion industry.

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The Ethics of Global Supply Chains in China - Convergences of East and West

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This paper addresses ethical issues surrounding global supply chains of multinational companies in developing countries. In particular, it considers the development and application of industry-wide et

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FASH455 Global Apparel & Textile Trade and Sourcing

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How to deal with China as a sourcing destination remains a tough and controversial issue facing U.S. apparel retailers and fashion brands in 2016. Although companies are of grave concerns about China's continuous rising production cost (especially labor cost), few other lower-wage countries can beat China in terms of industry integration, supply chain efficiency, and reliability.This blog post intends to add to the discussion by taking a look at the supply side, i.e. what is happening in the China textile and apparel (T&A) industry.

First, China's production capacity remains unparalleled in the world. In 2014, the latest statistics available, textile fiber production in China exceeded 50 million tons, accounting for 54.36 percent of world share. By 2013, as much as 64.2 percent of the world's chemical fibers, 64.1 percent of synthetic fibers and 26.2 percent of cotton were produced in China (see the table blew). On the other hand, apparel production in China reached 29.9 billion units in 2014, up 10.4 percent from 2013. Given China's vast production capacity, very likely it will remain the top apparel sourcing destination for most EU and US fashion apparel companies for many years to come. For example, Vietnam's apparel production in 2015 totaled 2.85 billion units, which was only around 10 percentage of China's production scale in 2014.

Second, China's T&A industry is growing slower. Specifically, output of China's T&A industry (measured by value added) grew only 7.0 percent between 2013-2014, a significant drop from 10.3 percent between 2009-2010. Other major economic indicators in the industry, from sales revenue, net profit to investment, followed a similar pattern (see the figure below). Additionally, for the first time since the 2008 financial crisis, China's T&A exports suffered a 3.9 percent decline in 2015 (-1.3% for textiles and -5.4% for apparel). Given the downward pressure on China's economy and uncertainties in the world marketplace, such a slow-growth pattern is likely to continue in the years ahead.

Third, China's T&A industry is undergoing important structural adjustment. Within the total industry output, the ratio of apparel, home textiles and industrial textiles has turned from 51:29:20 in 2010 to 46.8: 28.6: 24.6 in 2014, reflecting China's efforts to move towards making more value-added and technology-intensive textile products. This ratio is expected to become 40:27:33 by the end of 2020 (i.e. the end of China's 13th five-year plan). In order to overcome the pressure of rising labor and production cost, China's T&A manufacturing base is gradually moving from the east coast to the western and central part of the country (accounting for 22.5 percent of China's T&A production in 2014, up from 16.8 percent in 2010; this share may further increase to 28 percent by 2020). Additionally, T&A companies in China are encouraged to increase spending on research and development (R&D), which on average had accounted for 0.47 percent of T&A companies' sales revenue in 2013, up from 0.43 percent in 2011.

Fourth, T&A companies in China are actively seeking business opportunities in the domestic retail market. Apparel retail sales in China reached 893.6 billion yuan in 2014 (around $137.5 billion), among which 30.77 percent were sold online (up from 14.54 percent in 2011). Apparel retail price on average rose 2.6 percent between 2013-2014, compared with 2.0 percent increase of China's overall CPI over that period. However, it shall be noted that apparel retail sales in China's tier 1 and tier 2 cities achieved almost zero growth in 2014, partially reflecting the negative impact of retail price increase on consumers' demand. In comparison, apparel retail sales in China's tier 3 & 4 cities as well as rural areas remain robust and strong. Additionally, financial performance of T&A companies in China is becoming more polarized. Companies that follow the traditional business model of manufacturing and exporting are facing their most difficult time since the 2008 financial crisis. However, there are also many success stories of apparel companies that focus on function upgrading, i.e. moving from simply "manufacturing" products to "serving" the market needs.

Recommended reading: China's 13th five-year plan for its textile and apparel industry: Key numbers

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State of China's Textile and Apparel (T&A) Industry (Updated in January 2016)

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How to deal with China as a sourcing destination remains a tough and controversial issue facing U.S. apparel retailers and fashion brands in 2016. Although companies are of grave concerns about China's continuous rising production cost (especially labor cost), few other lower-wage countries can beat China in terms of industry integration, supply chain efficiency, and...

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According to Nelson Fraiman, a Columbia Business School professor who wrote a 2010 case study about Zara, the retail giant can get a product out from concept to store in just 15 days, while the industry standard is 6 months.

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It's not unusual to pass a Zara store and do a double-take - didn't you just see that on the catwalk? As a brand, their speed and responsiveness to the latest fashion trends are key to Zara's competitive advantage. Owned by the distribution group Inditex, we had a look at what makes Zara so fast that the New York Times called it "mind-spinningly supersonic ".

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Amancio Ortega founded Zara in 1975 as an attempt to better understand world markets for his fashion merchandise. From that first store in Spain, Zara has since expanded to more than 2,200 stores in 96 countries around the world.

In 2012, Inditex, Ortega's parent company made up of Zara and other retail concepts and suppliers, reported total sales of US$20.7 billion, with Zara representing a powerful 66 percent, or US$13.6 billion, of that total.

What's the secret to Zara's competitive advantage? Their supply chain .

Zara produces around 450 million items a year. How can it stay so efficient with the sheer volume that passes through its supply chain? Regular, small-batch deliveries happen with clockwork precision twice a week to all of their stores around the world.

Ensuring all this runs smoothly is what Zara does best - controlling more of its manufacturing and supply chain than most of its competitive counterparts.

Synergy between Zara's business strategy and operational processes

Zara's overarching strategy is achieving growth through diversification with vertical integrations. It adapts couture designs, manufactures, distributes, and retails clothes within two weeks of the original design first appearing on catwalks. This is in stark contrast to the average six months it takes to produces items in the fashion industry.

The company owns its supply chain and competes on its speed to market, literally embodying the idea of 'fast fashion'.

Just in Time production

The retail giant delivers fashionable and trendy numbers catered for different tastes through a controlled and integrated process - Just in Time production .

Zara's success relies on keeping a significant amount of its production in-house and making sure that its own factories reserve 85 percent of their capacity for in-season adjustments. In-house production allows the organization to be flexible in the amount, frequency, and variety of new products to be launched.

The company often relies heavily on sophisticated fabric sourcing, cutting, and sewing facilities nearer to its design headquarters in Spain.

The wages of these European workers are higher than those of their developing-world counterparts, but the turnaround time is miraculous.

Zara also commits six months in advance to only 15 to 25 percent of a season's line. And it only locks in 50 to 60 percent of its line by the start of the season, meaning that up to 50 percent of its clothes are designed and manufactured smack in the middle of the season.

If a certain style or design becomes the new must-have on the street, Zara gets to work. Designers churn out the new styles and they're fast-tracked to stores while the trend is still going strong.

Store managers communicate customer feedback on what shoppers like, what they dislike, and what they're looking for. That demand forecasting data is instantly funneled back to Zara's designers, who begin sketching on the spot.

Zara also has extra capacity on hand to respond to demand as it develops and changes. For example, it operates typically 4.5 days per week around the clock on full capacity, leaving some flexibility for extra shifts and temporary labor to be added when needed.

This then translates to frequent shipments and higher numbers of customer visits to the stores, creating an environment of shortage and opportunity.

Zara's business strategy allows the company to sell more items at full price because of the sense of scarcity and exclusiveness the company exudes. Zara's total cost is minimized because merchandise that is marked down is reduced dramatically as compared to competitors.

Zara makes 85 percent of the full price on its clothes, while the industry average is 60 to 70 percent. Unsold items account for less than 10 percent of its stock, compared with an industry average of 17 to 20 percent.

Most companies are riddled with penny-wise, pound-foolish decisions to reduce cost. Zara understands that if they don't have to discount as much, they can spend money on other things. They can see the benefit of this certainty and rhythm in the supply chain."
- Kasra Ferdows, professor at Georgetown University's McDonough School of Business in this article on Bloomberg.

This is also the reason why Zara can afford the extra labor and shipping costs needed to accommodate and satisfy changes in customer demand .

Lean inventory management

You'll be hard pressed to find any excess inventory or deadstock in a Zara warehouse. Throughout the supply chain, lean is the word, all the way from raw materials to the finished garments on the shelves.

Inventory optimization models are put in place to help the company to determine the quantity that should be delivered to every single one of its retail stores via shipments that go out twice every week. The stock delivered is strictly limited, ensuring that each store only receives just want they need. This goes towards the brand image of being exclusive while avoiding the build up of unpopular stock.

This quick in-season turnaround, from production facilities located close to Zara's distribution headquarters in Spain, allows Zara to ship more often and in smaller batches. If the design Zara hastily creates in an attempt to chase the latest trend does not sell well, little harm is done.

The batch is small, so there's not a ton of unsold inventory to get rid of. And because the failed experiment is over quickly, there's still time to try a different style, and then a different one after that.

Centralized order fulfillment

The secret to Zara's success has been centralization. They can make decisions in a very coordinated manner."
- Felipe Caro, associate professor at the University of California at Los Angeles's Anderson School of Management and a business adviser to the company.

Zara sticks to a deep, predictable and fast rhythm, based around rapid deliveries to stores.

Each Zara outlet sends in two orders per week on specific days. Trucks leave at specific times and shipments arrive in stores at specific times. Garments are already labeled and priced upon arriving at their destination, meaning they're immediately ready to be sold.

As a result of this clearly defined rhythm, every staff member involved in the supply chain - from design to procurement, production, distribution, and retail - knows the timeline and how their activities impact other functions. That certainly also extends to Zara customers, who know when to visit stores for fresh new garments.

Zara's reliance on centralized order fulfillmen t is what enables the company to maintain incredibly efficient workflows - from initial design right through to delivery to stores and customers. The company's approach is just another example of why streamlined operations and supply chain management are critical to profitability and achieving scale.

Automation is a game-changer in supply chain management.
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Solid distribution network

Zara's strong distribution network enables the company to deliver goods to its European stores within 24 hours, and to its American and Asian outlets in less than 40 hours.

Fast fashion success

Zara's success story shows the strength of its operations. Its cross-functional operations strategy, coupled with its vertically integrated supply chain, enables mass production under push control, leading to well-managed inventories , lower markdowns, higher profitability, and value creation for shareholders in the short and long term.

Zara is all about staying on top of the hottest trends, and exuding an exclusive feel, but its supply chain is the real star of the show. These rockstar-level logistics take it from being just another fashion retailer to an industry example of fast fashion done right.

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Zara supply chain analysis - the secret behind Zara's retail success

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It's not unusual to pass a Zara store and do a double-take - didn't you just see that on the catwalk? As a brand, their speed and responsiveness to the latest fashion trends are key to Zara's competitive advantage.

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China Textile Industry Overview | Chinese Textile Sector Overview

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China textile industry overview consisting details about export, import, trade partners etc. Chinese textile sector overview having important policy updates, news and more.

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Local Village Workers, Foreign Factories and Village Politics in Coastal China

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This article highlights how women labourers in South America (e.g. Mexio, Sau Paulo, & Brazil) are fighting for their rights as textile workers. The article formation of unions --> Something that workers of MAS trading are not allowed the right to.

Note: Look at Broadly Vice Beyonce Article for reference of prevention of trade unions

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Improving Labour Standards in Clothing Factories

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Impact of Corporate Code of Conduct on Labor Standards, A Case Study of Reeboks Athletic Footwear Supplier Factory in China

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How Much It Sucks to Be a Sri Lankan Worker Making Beyoncé's New Clothing Line

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How Much It Sucks to Be a Sri Lankan Worker Making Beyoncé's New Clothing Line

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There's a statement in here that mentions how facilities in Sri Lankan MAS holdings has good facilities but does not allow workers to unionize.

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Beyonce's much-hyped surprise collaboration with British clothing giant Topshop made headlines around the world when it launched in April this year. Topshop's website crashed as people rushed to purchase premium athleisure (prices start at $14 for sweatbands, and go up to $265 for a full length color block body.) An exclusive cover story with Elle emphasized how the clothing line was "a way to push a feel-good, woman-power ethos, to de-emphasize perfectionism, to value strength over beauty, and to inspire."

The backlash was inevitable. British tabloid newspaper the Sun on Sunday ran an expose describing the Sri Lankan garment workers making the range as "sweatshop 'slaves' earning just 44p (64 cents) an hour making 'empowering' Beyoncé clobber." Reporters visited "poverty-stricken seamstresses" at the MAS Holdings factory in Sri Lanka, which produces the clothes.

One sewing machine operator said that she was unable to survive on her basic wage of 18,500 rupees a month ($126). The newspaper claimed on average seamstresses earn £4.30 a day ($6.23), although acknowledging that workers at the factory were still being paid above the legal minimum wage of 13,500 rupees a month.

"What is being described by the Sun it looks like a severe case of exploitation, bordering on slavery," said anti-exploitation campaigner Jakub Sobik from Anti-Slavery International. He highlighted particular concerns, including low pay and limits on the women's movement at night by locking them into their accommodation (the workers reside on-site and are subject to curfews.)

Sobik called for Topshop to introduce independent inspections of all their suppliers, and asked them to "look more proactively into their supply chains to limit the risks of exploitation and modern slavery tainting their products."

To find out more about the conditions of the workers making Beyonce's clothes, we spoke to Dr Kanchana Ruwanpura of the University of Edinburgh. Dr Ruwanpura is an expert on the Sri Lankan garment industry, and has visited MAS factories in Sri Lanka, though her visit took place several years ago.
Read more: The Hellish Commute of the Women Who Make Your Clothes
"MAS are essentially top of the range in terms of labour conditions in Sri Lanka," she says. "They're brilliant factories in terms of the build space and the attention they usually pay to the codes they work with. However, I would say that when it comes to wages and freedom of association, MAS don't do a very good job."

Disturbingly, MAS workers are not allowed to unionize, despite the obvious benefits unions bring. "Factories across Sri Lanka, including MAS, are almost all guilty of not upholding the right of workers to unionize. That's one thing they completely fail on." Dr Ruwanpura highlights low wages as another concern. "MAS is not paying its workers a living wage."

Alongside tourism, the clothing industry in Sri Lanka is a huge economic driver. It directly employs an estimated 300,000 people, with an additional 600,000 indirectly employed. While Sri Lanka is generally considered to have better working conditions than other clothing-producing countries such as Bangladesh or Pakistan, campaigners say a living wage in the country should be 48,608 rupees ($332), over three times the legal minimum.

I ask Dr Ruwanpura about the life of an average Sri Lankan garment worker. "As none of the factories pay a living wage, salaries (with overtime included) are generally around the 17,000 to 20,000 rupee mark ($116 to $136/month.) The factories work on a shift system, apart from in busy periods when workers may be asked to work overtime to help make big orders."

But for all that Ivy Park's promotional materials talk of empowerment, how autonomous are the women sewing your mid-rise mesh-panelled leggings? "The garment industry has made Sri Lankan women financially independent, but I wouldn't say it's made them autonomous. When you're not being paid a living wage-well, it's economically challenging. I've been to some of these worker's houses. It's hard for them."

A spokesperson for Ivy Park told Broadly: "Ivy Park has a rigorous ethical trading programme. We are proud of our sustained efforts in terms of factory inspections and audits, and our teams worldwide work very closely with our suppliers and their factories to ensure compliance. We expect our suppliers to meet our code of conduct and we support them in achieving these requirements."

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How Much It Sucks to Be a Sri Lankan Worker Making Beyoncé's New Clothing Line

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Beyonce's much-hyped surprise collaboration with British clothing giant Topshop made headlines around the world when it launched in April this year. Topshop's website crashed as people rushed to purchase premium athleisure (prices start at $14 for sweatbands, and go up to $265 for a full length color block body.)

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Oxfam 2016 Report: More than 60 million people work in the garment industry to fuel fast fashion. More than 15 million people are based in Asia. More than 80% of these workers are women, who are predominantly young and from poor rural backgrounds.

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Fair Trade Aus

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The Politics of Workers Right Protection in Nigeria

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The Politics of Workers Right Protection in Nigeria

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The Politics of Workers Rights Protection International Labour Organisation and Promotion of Labour Rights in Manufacturing Industry in Nigeria

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Annelies Goger and Kanchana N. Ruwanpura
When Beyoncé and U.K. fast fashion retailer Topshop made a decision to source her new gym wear label, Ivy Park, from Sri Lanka, a head-on encounter with the sweatshop debate was probably not on their radar. MAS Holdings, a company that produces clothing for Ivy Park, is one of Sri Lanka's largest clothing manufacturers and has gone to great lengths (and expense) to cultivate a reputation for being one of the world's most ethical and innovative clothing suppliers - from building the world's first eco-friendly apparel plant in partnership with Marks & Spencer to its "MAS Women Go Beyond," a women's empowerment initiative, among other initiatives.

Yet, a U.K. tabloid, the Sun on Sunday levied harsh accusations that the workers producing Ivy Park clothing at a MAS Holdings factory were toiling under "sweatshop" conditions, as "slave" labor, with low wages. Various other newspapers, blogs, and op-eds followed suit, some arguing that Beyoncé et al., can solve this if they "switch suppliers." These are not new allegations for the clothing industry-the global anti-sweatshop movement is over twenty years old and has taken on diverse institutional and organizational forms. So what is new this time? What is going on? Who is responsible?

As academic researchers who have worked on various dimensions of ethical trade, management, and labor practices in Sri Lanka for several years, we wanted to share our account of how the Sri Lankan apparel industry fits within the ethical sourcing landscape of global supply chains today. We argue that a focus on wages as a centerpiece of what counts as "ethical" manufacturing is remarkable in this incarnation of the sweatshop debate.(1)

Although the living wage issue is certainly not new, it is significant to make low wages the main determinant of what it means to be unethical and to use Beyoncé's support for the feminist cause as leverage to shame suppliers for low wages. This matters because even as we write this, in Sri Lanka's negotiations over the GSP+ trade preferences, Europe and the EU remain silent on living wages. Living wages are rarely incorporated into corporate and multi-stakeholder compliance codes that govern global supply chains. It is even more rare for buyers to document progress in achieving them.

Apparel is commonly portrayed as a foot-loose industry that moves around in search of the lowest wages-the assumption being that wages are the most important factor in sourcing decisions. As many have argued, however, wages only make up 0.5% to 4% of the final retail price, on average. In many cases, a doubling of wages for workers will not have a substantial impact on margins or final prices, because the share is so low to begin with. By comparison, clothing retailers have much more capital at risk when they over-produce clothing and then have to mark it down. This is why a highly capable supplier that can produce smaller batches will be more competitive than one that offers the lowest price.

From 2008-2011, the global apparel industry was facing not only the global economic recession, but also the final removal of Multi-Fiber Arrangement (MFA) quotas, which regulated apparel trade since the 1970s. The MFA phase-out lifted restrictions from high-volume producing countries, such as China, which flooded apparel markets and increased downward price pressures. In this context, buyers gained bargaining power to place more demands on suppliers at a lower price.

Sri Lanka's response to these challenges was to focus on its' niche in brand-conscious "ethical" apparel. As we have documented elsewhere, Sri Lanka was in a position to do this in large part due to a longstanding history of strong labor laws and local norms that value education and prohibit child labor. Since the early 2000s, many Sri Lankan industrialists put ethical production at the core of their business model and cultivated a reputation as highly capable and visionary suppliers-domestically and internationally. Highly capable suppliers are responsive to buyer demands, such as meeting compliance or quality standards, managing upstream supply, or providing quick-turnaround production.

As a result, MAS Holdings and many other leading Sri Lankan suppliers tend to perform very well in meeting conventional monitoring and compliance standards. Yet, the concerns raised around wages by the recent media foray do hold water. Sri Lankan garment workers are not paid a living wage. As one of us has argued elsewhere, wages are the Achilles heel of the Sri Lankan apparel industry.

Minimum wage levels matter, because codes of conduct frequently defer to national laws to set standards. The Wages Boards Ordinance (WBO), a tripartite body, regulates minimum wages in Sri Lanka. Sri Lankan law requires employers to pay garment sector workers on a monthly salary basis (not on an hourly, daily, or piece-rate basis). According to the Sri Lanka Department of Labor website, the minimum wage for sewing operators in Sri Lanka was last increased in 2013, and it is currently at 10,075 Sri Lankan Rupees per month (US$66, oanda.com conversion on 6/2/2016). Wage increments determined by the WBO often do not keep pace with inflation.

As the International Labor Organization documented, Sri Lanka's minimum wages are among the lowest in the world for garment-producing countries-lower than regional competitors India and Bangladesh. Sri Lankan wages remain lower than India and Bangladesh even after adjusting for purchasing power parity, using 2014 World Bank World Development Indicators. While the responsibility for the failure to adequately protect worker welfare rests with the state, given that the WBO is a tripartite body, employers, the state, and unions are all culpable in this outcome.

Apparel companies may argue, in response, that prevailing wages are much higher than the minimum. However, based on our research in several factories in 2011, operators were paid between 15,000 to 20,000 Sri Lankan Rupees per month. These wages included productivity incentives, attendance bonuses, and overtime pay. Campaigners, such as Asia Floor Wage, have calculated a living wage figures for Sri Lanka to be much higher.

For Sri Lankan apparel companies, the lack of paying its workers a living wage poses very real risks. Recently, the Modern Anti-Slavery Act in the UK has increased governance of supply chain procurement. For example, suppliers will bear responsibility if low wages compel their workers to engage in commercial sex work. The ongoing problems with extreme poverty, overcrowding, and unsanitary living conditions outside Sri Lanka's largest export processing zone, Katunayaka, are also a verifiable reminder that apparel worker wages are woefully inadequate.

In closing, now that the living wage issue is at the forefront of the ethical trade debate, Sri Lankan suppliers may need to adjust their business models to account for the risk of tarnishing their Garments without Guilt brand. The Sri Lankan government, in turn, has a role to play in setting a minimum wage that adequately protects worker welfare and moves the country from being at the back of the pack, globally. Given uneven power dynamics, global buyers themselves have much more work to do to ensure their sourcing practices result in prices that make a living wage possible.

Note:
(1) The issue of freedom of association, mentioned in the expose, is also important and more complex than the narrative assumes, but we chose to focus this piece on the wage issue given a lack of space.

Annelies M. Goger is a Senior Research Associate at Social Policy Research Associates, in Oakland, California, where she conducts labour and education policy research. She received her Ph.D. in Geography from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 2013, with dissertation research on ethical trade in the Sri Lankan clothing industry. The first author's research was supported by the Social Science Research Council International Dissertation Research Fellowship (with funding from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation), the U.S. National Science Foundation, and the Fulbright U.S. Student Program in Sri Lanka. Kanchana N. Ruwanpura is a Reader in Development Geography at the Institute of Geography, University of Edinburgh and Co-Director at the Centre for South Asian Studies at her home academic institution. She has her PhD from the University of Cambridge and has been researching on Sri Lankan apparels since 2008. Authors are placed in alphabetical order; the funding for the second author came from the ESRC Grant Number: RES-0161-25-0181.

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Living Wages: Recurring problems of ethical fashion in Sri Lanka?

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Annelies Goger and Kanchana N. Ruwanpura When Beyoncé and U.K. fast fashion retailer Topshop made a decision to source her new gym wear label, Ivy Park, from Sri Lanka, a head-on encounter with the sweatshop debate was probably not on their radar.

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Textile and clothing exports of developed developing countries An analysis under the restrictive trade regime

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Updated April 20, 2016 22:52:58

Australian companies such as Oroton and Seed have been criticised for failing to publicly disclose where they source their clothes from.

Two reports, authored by Baptist World Aid and Oxfam, and obtained by 7.30, disclose which companies have knowledge of their complex supply chain.

Oroton was graded a "D", while Seed, Best and Less and Lorna Jane were graded an "F" by the report.

Target, Kmart and brands owned by the Specialty Fashion Group all scored well after being accused three years ago of having little to no knowledge of their supply chains.

The criticism came after the collapse of the Rana Plaza building in Bangladesh three years ago that killed more than 1,130 garment workers.

However, luxury brands Oroton, Lorna Jane and Seed have not publicly provided information showing where they source their clothes from.

By not knowing their supply chains, human rights groups argue there is a high chance workers are exposed to exploitation and sweatshop conditions.

"We are encouraging those companies to do more to be more transparent to let us know their supply chains are strong and that workers are being protected," Gershon Nimbalker, the author of Baptist World Aid's Australian Fashion Report, said.

Worker Kohinur Akter, 25, sews clothes for Target Australia in Bangladesh and earns $7 a day.

Her wage is above the minimum wage but still low enough to make life a struggle.

"It's not enough money but what can you do?" she told 7.30 from her home in Dhaka.

"Some other factories provide more overtime but they have more targets to make more, too."

While she enjoys her job, Ms Akter said there was a lot of pressure placed on workers.

"Sometimes they get one person to do the work of two people," she said.

"We get very big pressure. When they do that I am under big pressure to meet the target.

"Sometimes we get thirsty but we don't have time to get a drink because of the workload."

Rana Plaza collapse 'a turning point'

Three years after the Rana Plaza disaster, there are still safety concerns for garment workers as the majority of factories are yet to meet safety standards set by the Bangladeshi Fire and Safety Accord.

Gary Perlstein, Chief Executive Officer of Specialty Fashion, owns the Rivers, Katies and Millers brands and said the collapse of the Rana Plaza building was a turning point for the industry.

"It is a movement and it is growing and it will get stronger," Mr Perlstein said.

"It will get more intense and in doing that we will get to the right place."

Three years ago the low-cost clothing company, Rivers, was harshly criticised by Four Corners for underpaying its workers and putting immense pressure on workers to deliver clothes on time.

"After the acquisition of Rivers we changed 85 per cent of our factories that we are working with globally, in line with the factories of Specialty Fashion Group.

"There are some factories that we are working with that are not up to scratch, but our commitment is that we will stay to help them along the journey.

Dr Helen Szoke from Oxfam said Australian companies had no excuse not to know their supply chain.

"The responsibility of the Australian garment trade to actually know who is producing their garment, the circumstances in which they are produced and what our survey tells us is that Australian consumers care about that," she said.

An Oxfam survey of 1,000 consumers showed 89 per cent would pay more to ensure the safety of garment workers.

Fashion companies respond

"The comments about Best & Less in the Australian Fashion Report do not reflect our commitment to ethical responsibility in the supply chain. We have dedicated teams within our Leichhardt, Shanghai and Bangladesh offices to ensure adherence to our ethical sourcing policy. We are committed to ensuring that not only do we provide a high-quality and safe product but a product that we know has been produced in a safe working environment.
- Best & Less chief executive officer Rodney Orrock

"Lorna Jane does not manufacture in Bangladesh. We have built a long-term partnership with a reliable and ethical manufacturing group that manufactures Lorna Jane products in China. It is important to us that our manufacturing source reflects who we are as a brand and our active living philosophy. We continually work together to ensure that our workplace code of conduct protects the welfare of every employee and our environment."
- Lorna Jane executive marketing and e-commerce manager Jessie Dean

"Seed is committed to the safe and ethical manufacture, sourcing and supply of goods and services. As such, Seed is committed to sourcing merchandise that is produced according to the company's strict principles of safe working conditions, where human rights are respected and people have free right of association. Seed will only deal with vendors who at least provide the working conditions and benefits stipulated by law and whose workers [employees and contractors] are treated and compensated fairly and not exposed to physical harm. As such, Seed has an extensive code of supplier conduct which is subject to ongoing audits."
- Seed PR and communications manager Amelia Paul

Topics: corporate-governance, globalisation---economy, retail, textiles, australia, bangladesh

First posted April 20, 2016 15:21:02

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Australian fashion companies fail to disclose supply chain, risk worker exploitation, report says

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Updated April 20, 2016 22:52:58 Australian companies such as Oroton and Seed have been criticised for failing to publicly disclose where they source their clothes from. Two reports, authored by Baptist World Aid and Oxfam, and obtained by 7.30, disclose which companies have knowledge of their complex supply chain.

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Current Trends on the World Textile Market and the Competitiveness of the Serbian Textile Industry

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Current Trends on the World Textile Market and the Competitiveness of the Serbian Textile Industry

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According to statistics released last month (September 2015) by the World Trade Organization (WTO), five important patterns emerged in world textile and apparel trade from 2013 to 2014. Dr Sheng Lu, assistant professor in the Department of Fashion and Apparel Studies at the University of Delaware, takes a closer look.
1: World textile and apparel trade is growing more slowly

Specifically, the value of world textile exports reached $314bn in 2014, up 2.7% from 2013; meanwhile, world apparel exports totalled $483bn, up 5.0% from a year earlier. However, this growth rate is not only one of the lowest since recovery from the 2008 financial crisis in 2010, but is also much lower than the pre-crisis level, which averaged 8.4% for textiles and 10.2% for apparel during the period from 2002-2007.

2: Asia continues to gain more momentum in world textile and apparel trade

In 2014, about 60% of world textile AND apparel exports came from Asia. At the same time, Asian countries together accounted for 31% of world textile imports and 16% of world apparel imports by value. With the continuing growth in income of local consumers, Asia is expected to account for more market share in world apparel imports in the years ahead.

3: China's textile and apparel exports are NOT losing competitiveness

Despite growing concerns about China's rising labour cost and worsening economy, data shows that China's market share in world textile exports reached a new historical height of 35.6% in 2014, up from 34.8% in 2013. China's market share in world apparel exports remained at 38.6% in 2014, the same as a year earlier.

4: Textile and apparel trade remains largely regional-based...

...Especially in Asia, Europe and America (including North, South and Central America). Three specific intra-regional trade flows are worth watching: one is Asian countries' growing dependence on textile supply from within the region, which rose to 90.2% in 2014 from 87.7% in 2000. The second is Europe's stable intra-regional trade pattern both for textiles and apparel. In 2014, 58.8% of the EU's (28 members) textile imports and 46.2% of apparel imports came from other EU members; at the same time, 68.8% of the EU's (28 members) textile exports and 74.7% of apparel exports also went to other EU members. Additionally, 80.3% of American countries' textile imports still came from within the region in 2014; at the same time, 88.9% of American countries' apparel exports were also shipped to the region, mostly the United States and Canada as the final consumption market.

5: More "Made in USA" textiles and apparel are sold internationally

From 2013 to 2014, US textile and apparel exports increased 3.2% and 4.3% respectively. Indeed, from 2000 to 2014, the value of US textile and apparel exports increased by 18% and 30% respectively. This is in contrast with just 1.9% annual growth rate for textile exports and negative growth of 9.2% for apparel exports during the period of 2001 to 2007. Close to 73% of US textile exports and 67% of US apparel exports went to North, South and Central America in 2014, suggesting the growing popularity of the western-hemisphere supply chain is an important factor behind the expansion of "Made in USA" textile and apparel exports.

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Five key trends in world textile and apparel trade

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According to statistics released last month (September 2015) by the World Trade Organization (WTO), five important patterns emerged in world textile and apparel trade from 2013 to 2014. Dr Sheng Lu, assistant professor in the Department of Fashion and Apparel Studies at the University of Delaware, takes a closer look.

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How well do your favourite clothes brands treat their workers?

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Three years after the deadly garment factory collapse in Bangladesh that shocked the world, see how your favourite brands ranks in efforts to improve working conditions in foreign countries.

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Global Textile Industry Report | Economic Research

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This report analyzes the Textile industry including global risks, market value, strengths and weaknesses, latest trends and recent evolutions.

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The fires and building collapses that killed hundreds of garment workers in countries like Bangladesh in recent years serve as a tragic reminder of the millions in developing countries who labor in wretched conditions. These workers, however, are not the garment or cotton industry's first victims.

A book published earlier this month - "Empire of Cotton: A Global History" by Sven Beckert, a history professor at Harvard - describes in vivid detail how the industrialization of cotton contributed to slavery, the destruction of American Indian cultures and famines in British India. And while the parallels between the 18th century and 19th century and the present are inexact, the reader can't help but think that cotton, for all its many uses, still exacts a human cost.

High school history class is good at teaching us the positive elements of this past. Older textbooks described how breakthrough innovations like the cotton gin and the steam engine fueled the industrial revolution and helped make cheap consumer goods widely available for the first time. New books like "Empire of Cotton" and "The Half Has Never Been Told: Slavery and the Making of American Capitalism" by Edward Baptist offer gripping and more nuanced stories of economic history.

Mr. Beckert explains how the emergence of a textile industry in England contributed to wars against American Indian tribes in the South and fueled the slave trade. American Indians were forcibly removed from territory their ancestors had long inhabited because those fertile lands were needed to grow cotton to supply mills in Manchester and Liverpool. Hundreds of thousands of slaves were shipped across the Atlantic Ocean and moved within the United States to sow and harvest the plant.

Later, when the Civil War disrupted cotton production in the United States, British and other European capitalists turned to countries like India and Egypt that were already growing the plant along with food crops. Assisted by colonial administrators, industrialists cajoled farmers to switch to growing only cotton, subjecting farmers to trade volatility for which they were ill prepared and greatly diminishing the food supply.

"In 1877 and again in the late 1890s, Berar, as well as northeastern Brazil, witnessed the starvation of millions of cultivators as cotton prices fell while food grain prices rose, putting food out of reach of many cotton producers," Mr. Beckert writes, referring to a province in British India.

Then, as now, people who benefitted from the status quo said that ending the human exploitation that made cotton so profitable would cause broader economic harm. In 1858, Senator James Henry Hammond of South Carolina warned on the Senate floor that "England would topple headlong and carry the whole civilized world with her, save the South. No, you dare not make war on cotton. No power on earth dares to make war upon it. Cotton is king."

In more recent times, Western retailers have resisted taking responsibility for improving working conditions in clothing factories in developing countries in large part because doing so would raise the cost of making cheap T-shirts. Some companies like Walmart have contributed only modestly to compensation funds for workers who died in fires and building collapses in factories where their clothes were made. Their lame excuse is that they did not authorize production in those specific factories and should not have to pay for the choices and mistakes of their contractors and subcontractors.

It's true, of course, that for poor Bangladeshis, Cambodians and others who make today's clothes, these jobs offer an escape from poverty and subsistence farming. But the callous disregard that factory owners, large Western clothing companies and government officials have shown for worker safety in pursuit of profits bears more than a passing resemblance to the historic injustices committed in the name of King Cotton.

Companies like Walmart, Gap and H&M and the government of Bangladesh have recently committed to making factories safer. But that effort, begun only after the collapse of Rana Plaza and the loss of more than 1,100 lives in April 2013, will require years of hard work. History will surely judge the clothing industry and political leaders harshly for waiting so long to act.

A version of this article appears in print on , on Page A26 of the New York edition with the headline: A Long History of Exploitation in the Cotton Industry. Order Reprints | Today's Paper | Subscribe

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Opinion | A Long History of Exploitation in the Cotton Industry

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The fires and building collapses that killed hundreds of garment workers in countries like Bangladesh in recent years serve as a tragic reminder of the millions in developing countries who labor in wretched conditions.

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H&M Factories' Deadly Conditions Exposed

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H&M, the largest buyer of garments from Bangladesh, is "dramatically behind schedule" on correcting fire and safety hazards in the factories it sources from, according to a study released October 1st by the Clean Clothes Campaign, in collaboration with several labor groups. Many of those delayed improvements are a serious threat to worker safety.

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The first time you see a child hunched over a sewing machine in a hot, airless factory will never leave you.

The boy, no more than 11 or 12, peeked up at me with just the trace of a smile before he dipped his head again, back to work. It felt like a punch in the gut.

I'd been told that child labour was endemic in Turkey. But I wasn't prepared for the reality of it. Or the scale of it. One basement workshop was almost entirely staffed with children, many of whom couldn't have been more than seven or eight years old, the very picture of Dickensian misery.

I was in Istanbul investigating allegations that Syrian refugees and children are being exploited by the garment industry. And specifically that many are working on clothes destined for our High Street.

This undercover investigation was unusually tricky. Secret filming is illegal in Turkey and we were halfway through our investigation when a state of emergency was declared in the country. We were routinely stopped and questioned by police. Our secret filming equipment had to be kept out of sight.

And yet finding Syrian refugees and children making branded clothes for the UK market was relatively straightforward.

Only a tiny percentage of the estimated 3 million Syrians who have sought refuge in Turkey have the necessary work permits. To survive, they have to work illegally, without any rights, and for low wages. A made-to-measure workforce for the garment industry, and a reminder that one person's plight is often another's opportunity.

I was able to see how this exploitation works for myself. It was just before 08:00. A group of people had gathered on a street corner on the outskirts of Istanbul, all desperate for a day's work.

We filmed through the blacked-out windows of our van a dozen yards away as a middleman picked this day's workforce, selecting them one by one. Those who were chosen boarded a bus to take them to a factory.

We know now that up to seven of the workers on board were Syrian refugees. One was just fifteen. Another, we'll call him Omar, was our source.

We followed behind until the bus stopped outside a factory in an industrial zone a few miles away. This factory was known to us. We'd been told it made clothes for some of the world's leading brands.

Later that evening, Omar met up with me. He showed me the labels from the clothes he'd been working on, that day. I recognised them instantly. So would you. The brand could hardly be better-known in the UK.

Over the next few weeks, I got to know Omar and his friends. Like all the Syrians I spoke to, they knew they were being exploited, but they knew there was very little they could do about it.

Some of them were being paid a little over £1 an hour, well below the Turkish minimum wage. The 15-year-old boy told me he wanted to be in school but he couldn't afford not to work. So he was spending more than 12 hours a day ironing clothes that are then shipped to the UK.

All the brands I contacted about this programme say they regularly inspect the factories making their clothes to guarantee standards. Some of these audits are unannounced. But the Syrian boys explained how the factories got round this problem.

When the auditors arrive, they are hidden out of sight. And when the auditors leave, they go back to work. As simple as that. Some of the brands acknowledge the inherent failings in the auditing process and are now trying to tie up with trade unions and NGOs to combat abuses.

Other factories may never be visited by auditors because as far as the brands are concerned, they don't make their clothes. They're part of the chain of sub-contractors who make up much of the garment industry in Turkey.

They take orders from so-called first-tier factories - official suppliers to the brands - but often without the knowledge of the brands themselves.

This is where you'll find the worst abuses of Syrian refugees and children. We decided to follow delivery vans from one of the first-tier factories hoping they would lead us down their supply chain.

Our plan was successful but also darkly disappointing. We filmed outside one of the sub-contractors as a small boy carried and dragged bags of material as big as himself to one of the vans. He couldn't have been more than 12.

We go inside posing as the owners of a new fashion business. In the manager's office we immediately spot a jacket that has been made for a British clothing retailer. It's whisked away. Later, after browbeating the owners to let us see the factory floor, we get sight of the young boy again.

He's carefully folding clothes at an ironing station. He looks up briefly and then looks down to his work again. And he's far from alone - there are half a dozen Syrian children of around his age in the workshop.

Efforts are being made to get them into education but it's estimated that as many as 400,000 are working, many of them in the garment industry.

I've spoken to some of the parents of these children. They don't want their kids working, but they say they simply don't have a choice.

One boy, just 13, told me he was between jobs. He had spent the morning looking for work when we spoke. No luck. I asked him what he would do now. Tears rolled slowly down his cheek as he told me that if he didn't work, he couldn't live.

Our evidence confirms that big fashion brands are profiting from refugees and their children. All the brands involved say they are completely opposed to child labour and any exploitation of Syrian refugees.

But our investigation shows they sometimes don't know how or where their clothes are being made. And until the brands know exactly who is making their clothes, then this type of exploitation is almost certain to continue.

Panorama - Undercover: The Refugees Who Make Our Clothes is on BBC One at 20:30 BST on Monday, 24 October and available on the BBC iPlayer afterwards.

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The first time you see a child hunched over a sewing machine in a hot, airless factory will never leave you. The boy, no more than 11 or 12, peeked up at me with just the trace of a smile before he dipped his head again, back to work.

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Analyst: Micaela Hanely

Team Leader: Ernest Tam

27/02/2017

The textile industry in Turkey has sky-rocketed to become the fourth largest clothing manufacturer in the world and the top in Europe. However, despite its rapid growth, the industry offers poor working conditions and wages significantly lower than the minimum wage to its workers; Turkish workers are the most underprivileged in Europe due to workplace accidents and deaths being very common . According to the 'Better Life Index' of OECD countries, Turkish people are less satisfied with their lives than the average of all countries. On a scale from 0-10, Turkish people gave an average score of 5.5, one of the lowest.

The NGO 'Clean Clothes Campaign' (CCC) has conducted research which exposes the life of textile industry workers in eastern European Union countries and Turkey. The NGO, CCC, found that while the minimum wage in Turkey is 1611 liras per month, textile workers within the country earn 1096 liras. Both the average household net adjusted disposable income per capita and the average household net financial wealth per capita are lower than the OECD averages. Due to the large amount of informal textile workers, employers rarely pay minimum wage; more than 40 percent of workers are informally employed. A trade unionist of DISK, Hasan Arslan, stated, "The wages paid in Turkey's garment industry are barely enough to survive."

Turkey ranks third globally in terms of industrial related accidents and first in Europe. The required hours of work per week in Turkey by law is 45 hours, but the industry averages a 67-hour work week where overtime pay is either low or nonexistent. In comparison to other OECD countries, Turkey exceeds all other countries in the amount of people who work long hours with 39% of the population. The conditions of the textile factories were called "murderous" by the Textile, Knitting and Clothing Industry Workers' Union (TEKSIF). Arslan said he blames both the Turkish textile employers and the Turkish government for the poor working conditions and wages under the minimum wage. He addresses that the solution to such problems could be solved by the government and the textile industry employers working together to unionize the industry; only seven percent of the workers in Turkey are currently unionized.

Children as young as 13 are eligible for part-time employment and illegal children labour is common in Turkey; full-time employment age of eligibility is 15. The widespread poverty in Turkey results in many young teenagers being taken advantage of and promised high wages in order to provide for themselves. Turkey has long been a member of the International Labour Organization/International Program on the Elimination of Child Labour (ILO/EPEC) since 1992, but child labour as well as children working in poor working conditions still persists as national regulations have not been effectively enforced. Many of these children drop out of school to enable themselves to work longer hours; many become injured or lose their lives due to heavy machinery and inappropriate working conditions which in turn cause malnutrition and other chronic health problems. The Syrian refugee crisis correlates with the increase of child labour in Turkey in 2015; specifically, the amount of child labour in the textile industry has increased. Children being exploited in the textile industry typically earn less than half of what an employer would pay an adult worker.

Globalization and large organization have collectively worsened the conditions of workers due to the need for cheap labour. Structural Adjustment programs (SAPs) of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank have caused labour to become cheaper and the standard of living to reduce in the areas of these programs. They benefit the multinational companies (MNCs), but harm the workers. The amount of social inequality between Turkish people is rated among the top five OECD countries for the highest amounts of inequality. The rapid increase of globalization has caused competition between MNCs to expand, thus also increasing the need for cheap labour. Governments tend to intensify the issue of unionizing by banning trade union federations in retaliation for their support; confidence and trust in these governments is then lost and social, economic and political issues arise. The International Trade Union Confederation conducted an index outlining the world's worst countries to work in. Turkey was labelled under the category of the worst countries: countries with " no guarantee of rights." The index states that although Turkey (and other similarly ranked countries) have legislature which defines certain rights of workers, workers have no access to these rights and thus face unfair labour practices.

The government in Turkey has also worsened the conditions of workers due to the restrictions they have placed on unionizing and striking. Turkish law previously prohibited the right to strike prior to collective bargaining. A union must represent "50 percent plus one" of employees at a particular workplace and 10 percent of workers from said branch of industry nationwide to be able to become a bargaining agent. Due to criticisms from the International Labour Organization (ILO), the Turkish government has allowed civil servants the right to unionize, but continues to prohibit them from striking or bargaining collectively. Without the ability to strike, the workers face a difficult task in challenging their employers.

Textile workers in Egypt have faced similar working conditions to those in Turkey, and the relationship between the government and the workers have suffered. In 2015, Egypt's largest public textile factory faced a strike including 17, 000 workers. The strike arose from employees not receiving a bonus in which they thought they deserved. The Chairman of this industry stated that each day the strike continued, the company was losing EGP 4 million per day. Turkey's harsh working conditions could lead to similar strike conditions; thus resulting in loss of profit and negative publicity which may cause consumer boycotting. The strike in Egypt resulted in workers being fired, forced to retire; some were charged with instigating strikes. These actions from the company and the government caused the workers to accuse the company as well as the government of being corrupt and neglecting employment rights; some of which ended in lawsuits. A lawyer fighting some of the chargers stated, "Instead of celebrating Labour Day in Egypt, perhaps we should start celebrating the ' Day of Punitive Dismissals.'" Without addressing the working conditions and the complaints from workers about their pay, Turkey could endure the same nature of strike as Egypt did. Turkey companies would lose millions of liras; the Turkish government has already received complaints and accusations of corruption from textile workers.

Remapping the stream of textile products from Turkish factories to the companies which sell the products would mitigate the root causes of poor working conditions in the textile industry. Altering the pathways of trade between the producers and the sellers would enable fair labour NGO's, such as the Fair Labour Association and Development Workshop Cooperative, and governmental institutions to adjust the system in such a way that the companies who benefit the most are those who have proper working conditions, pay legal wages, and do not abuse the rights of citizens. The insertion of tools and procedures to enhance working conditions is necessary as well as tools to expose the risks facing different demographic groups.

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Exploitation and the Turkish Textile Industry

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Analyst: Micaela Hanely Team Leader: Ernest Tam 27/02/2017 The textile industry in Turkey has sky-rocketed to become the fourth largest clothing manufacturer in the world and the top in Europe. However, despite its rapid growth, the industry offers poor working conditions and wages significantly lower than the minimum wage to its workers; Turkish workers are the most underprivileged in Europe due to workplace accidents and deaths being very common .

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Damning report on exploitation in Australian fashion industry

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Damning report on exploitation in Australian fashion industry