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General resource - intro to economics terms and concepts

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General resource - intro to economics terms and concepts

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Intro to Economics: Crash Course Econ #1

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Apple Iphone: technology waste and the supply chain 

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Apple Iphone: technology waste and the supply chain 

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Last year, I visited the sprawling mines of Cerro Rico, the "rich hill" that looms over Potosi, Bolivia. Four centuries ago, it supplied the silver that bankrolled the Spanish empire. Today, miners who work in the same tunnels as 16th century conscripted Incan laborers are providing tin for Apple products like the iPhone. It's a powerful paradox - our most cutting-edge consumer devices are made from raw material obtained by methods barely advanced beyond colonial times.

Cerro Rico couldn't be farther from Silicon Valley. Cigarette-scarred devil idols mark the mine entrances. Its support beams are split and cracked, and the air in the tunnels is thick with suffocating silica dust. According to a BBC report, the average lifespan of a Cerro Rico miner is 40 years. Worse, a UNICEF report found that children as young as 6 years old have worked in its tunnels.

Tin isn't the only ingredient in an iPhone that's obtained in ways that don't quite match Apple's "Supplier Code of Conduct," which states that "all workers in our supply chain deserve a fair and ethical workplace." In an effort to trace the origins of the iPhone I broke one - literally - into its basest elements. Among the things that became clear: Despite Apple's not insignificant efforts, the richest, most influential player in the technology industry isn't doing enough to protect the workers that provide the fundamental ingredients in its products.

Miners are risking their lives to provide you with a device that lets you read this while you're waiting in line for the bathroom.

My project started with a rock crusher and the help of David Michaud, a mining consultant with 911 Metallurgist in British Columbia. We smashed an iPhone 6, pulverizing it, and then analyzed the resulting dust using mass spectometry, X-ray fluorescence and infrared analysis. Our efforts yielded a richly detailed list of what makes up the iPhone's 129-grams.

The phone contained 31 grams of aluminum, nearly a quarter of its total weight. That was a little surprising, given how light aluminum is, but it's fitting that the most abundant metal in the Earth's crust is also the most abundant metal in the iPhone. Carbon and oxygen - found in the phone's plastics and its battery - ranked second and third in the elemental lineup, followed by iron.

We tallied more than 6% silicon (microchips), 6% copper (wiring) and more than 5% cobalt (a primary ingredient in the lithium-ion battery). Tin accounted for only about half a percent of the iPhone's total mass; it was used as the soldering agent, to fix the components in place.

The analysis also returned some unexpected findings - trace amounts of arsenic in the processor, and the element gallium. "It's the only metal" in the phone, Michaud says, "that is liquid at room temperature."

According to Michaud's calculations, to obtain the 100 or so grams of minerals found in a single iPhone, miners around the world have to dig, dynamite, chip and process their way through about 75 pounds of rock. On just about every continent, many of those miners are risking their lives to provide you with a device that lets you read this while you're waiting in line for the bathroom.

For example, the mud pit mines on Indonesia's Bangka Island, another source of tin for Apple, are arguably even deadlier than the Cerro Rico complex. Miners there have been swallowed by landslides and collapsing pits; six died in one week in 2012. In 2014, after a BBC report about Bangka, Apple sent a task force accompanied by an environmental NGO to investigate. It's unclear if conditions have changed much on Bangka, but according to its most recently published reports, Apple is still sourcing tin from the island's mud pits.

The Dodd-Frank Act of 2010 requires companies to identify the smelters that supply them with four "conflict" minerals - tin, tantalum (.02% of the phone), tungsten (also .02%) and gold (.014%). (The market for these substances funds warfare in and around the Democratic Republic of Congo.) Apple has complied. In 2014, it declared its tantalum suppliers conflict-free. In 2016, it announced that 100% of its smelters had submitted to third-party audits for fair practices. (It had already cut off a number of them for noncompliance with its code of conduct). However, by interviewing miners and tin industry analysts, I was able to link child labor-plagued Cerro Rico to a smelter Apple was still using in 2016 - clearly, third-party audits only go so far.

Every other year or so, a new revelation of terrible mining conditions seems to send the company scrambling. In 2016, the Washington Post revealed that "artisanal" mines in Congo, a prime source of cobalt for Apple and other companies, employed children and adults who dig by hand hundreds of feet into the earth for subsistence wages. Apple mapped its cobalt supply chain and promised to clean it up. But it wasn't until Sky News aired footage of children working in the Congolese mines this year that the company pledged to cut off the source.

Of course, Apple isn't alone in obtaining minerals from troubled mines and conflict zones. And it is undoubtedly true that establishing a clean, ethical supply chain is an enormous challenge. At Cerro Rico, for example, underage miners work in what you might call freelance cooperatives. They pool the ore they take from the mines and sell it to a middleman who in turn provides it to the smelter. The road from child-mined tin to an iPhone component is anything but direct and easy to police.

To effect real change, companies must dedicate serious resources and novel systems-thinking to the problem. And if any company has serious resources to spare it's Apple: It's the most valuable enterprise in the world, with $256 billion in cash on hand. Apple recently said it would like to end its reliance on mining altogether, and to its credit, it has experimented with solutions such as automated recycling. (Its impressive recycling robot, Liam, can disassemble used iPhones and harvest their parts.) But so far these projects are merely aspirational.

If Apple expects to live up to its code of conduct, it needs to spend more of its billions to aggressively map and proactively investigate where all its elements come from, getting past the smelters and into the mines at places like Cerro Rico. When Steve Jobs introduced the iPhone, he said, "It works like magic." Now Apple should turn its predilection for innovation and just-so design toward creating a state-of-the-art sustainable, ethical beginning-to-end supply chain - and a phone that is as humane to build as it is magical to use.
Brian Merchant, an editor at Motherboard, is the author of "The One Device: The Secret History of the iPhone." Follow the Opinion section on Twitter @latimesopinionand Facebook

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Were the raw materials in your iPhone mined by children in inhumane conditions?

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Last year, I visited the sprawling mines of Cerro Rico, the "rich hill" that looms over Potosi, Bolivia. Four centuries ago, it supplied the silver that bankrolled the Spanish empire. Today, miners who work in the same tunnels as 16th century conscripted Incan laborers are providing tin for Apple products like the iPhone.

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Apple Iphone: technology waste and the supply chain 

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Apple Iphone: technology waste and the supply chain 

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iPhone - Analytics in supply chain decisions

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After two years of heavy discounting, the tide seems to be turning against private brands as new tactics are deployed.

The photo ops don't get much friendlier than the cow sheds at Sydney's Royal Easter Show, and Woolworths was playing it for all it was worth this week, when it announced plans to buy direct from a group of NSW dairy farmers in order to give them a ''better deal for their milk''.

For the first time, milk processors such as Parmalat will not be the intermediary between supermarkets and dairy farmers when it comes to fresh milk supply, with the implicit promise that it will benefit the industry.

Never mind that Woolworths, Australia's largest supermarket operator, sells the $1-a-litre milk many have said imperils Australia's dairy folk.

Woolworths, which has portrayed itself as a reluctant participant in this particular battle with its arch-rival Coles, appears to concede it is part of the problem.

''There is no doubt there are a variety of significant issues affecting different parts of Australia's dairy industry,'' Woolworths fresh food chief Pat McEntee says. ''No one factor - whether it be the impact of $1 milk, or a tough export market exacerbated by a high Australian dollar - is solely responsible for the state of the industry.''

The announcement is being interpreted as an attempt to finally put some daylight between Woolworths and Coles over the price wars its smaller rival ignited more than two years ago.

It is no surprise Woolworths has attempted to break ranks with Coles. While its image has received an equal tarnishing from concerns over what the cheap milk is doing to Australian dairy farmers, cheap milk has not been as beneficial for Woolies as it has been for Coles.

At the peak of the price wars in 2011, more than 72 per cent of the milk sold in Coles supermarkets was its $1-a-litre private label offering.

Coles increased its private label sales by 64 million litres in the two years following its price cuts, which means it captured most of the growth in white milk sales.

Data from industry sales tracker Aztec shows sales of fresh milk across all supermarkets, corner shops and convenience stores only grew by 100 million litres over that same period.

Woolworths still holds a sizeable lead for overall milk sales, selling 498 million litres last year compared to Coles' 424 million litres. These figures include sales of milk brands such as the Lion-owned Pura, Dairy Farmers and Parmalat's brand, Pauls.

But despite matching the Coles price cuts, Woolworths - the market leader - paid the price of being the follower, adding just 10 million litres of private label sales over the period.

This means Woolworths did not get the volume increase needed to offset the price cuts to its private label milk - but it is not alone in that regard.

Aztec data shows that in 2011, the first year of the price war, Coles' overall milk sales - including sales of milk brands such as Pauls and Pura - were up 11 per cent by volume but down 2 per cent by value.

Woolworths' overall volumes increased 3.7 per cent and its value of sales declined 3 per cent.

Despite volume share peaking at more than 72 per cent, Coles' private label share of the milk sales dollar peaked at just above 56 per cent in late 2011 and fell to 50.7 per cent in the three months to February 17 this year - almost where it was before the milk wars began, although its volumes would have been much higher.

Woolworths' private label share by value of sales barely increased from the 50.3 per cent it had before the price war and the paltry volume gains meant it fell to 44.6 per cent late last year as brands such as Dairy Farmers, Pauls and Pura regained market share and super brands such as A2 powered ahead.

Regaining lost ground at Coles has been a lot harder, with the Wesfarmers-owned supermarket operator holding the volume gains made by its private label offering.

The fresh milk retail sector as a whole has not fully recovered, revenue-wise, from the price war either.

''The price drop inevitably had a downward effect on value sales,'' Nielsen's retail head Kosta Conomos says. ''It has taken two years for the milk category to almost get back to similar value sales seen in 2010.''

The volume gains came from somewhere, and not much of it was people buying more fresh white milk. As a product, fresh milk is relatively inelastic: people don't buy more just because it is cheap, and sales growth tends to reflect population growth.

For the most part, consumers have changed channels, buying more of their milk from the major supermarkets and less from independent supermarkets, convenience stores and the corner shop.

Aside from the sledgehammer impact of Coles wanting to embed its message of low-priced groceries, this was the intended effect.

Conomos says Nielsen data showed Coles, as the catalyst for the $1 milk price point, ''captured significant incremental share within the category as shoppers intentionally moved away from non-major supermarket chains when purchasing milk''.

By deeply discounting perishable items such as milk, which people need to shop for more regularly, Coles and Woolies have attracted a pool of shoppers that would normally have gone to convenience stores and ensured they spend more time at the supermarkets.

While the major supermarkets do benefit from cheap milk, the same cannot be said for Australia's milk processors, which have their brands to protect, yet have cut their own throats providing low-margin private-label milk for Coles and Woolworths.

On the day Woolworths announced its farmer-direct initiative, New Zealand dairy co-op Fonterra announced plans to slash its consumer brands and jobs in Australia to restore profitability as competition intensifies for milk supply and retail sales.

Fonterra says earnings from its Australian consumer brands fell 31 per cent for the first half of its financial year.

''There's a new reality in Australia,'' says chief executive Theo Spierings, with Fonterra facing ''aggressive competition'' in milk supply and a retail price war in Australia.

It has no option other than to strip out costs.

''That's why we have to rationalise brands, rationalise our organisation,'' he says.

Fonterra has 21 brands in Australia, which has room for a maximum four or five, he says.

The woes of Australia's milk processor Lion have been well documented.

Lion's total white milk volume across branded and private label was down 14.5 per cent for the year to September last year.

Before his departure, Lion's then chief Rob Murray said the milk portion of its dairy business was in a terrible state and not too dissimilar to the profitability profile of a charity, thanks to Coles and Woolworths and private label milk.

''We don't make any money [on milk],'' Murray said. ''The simple truth of that is nobody is making money and you can't make money if [consumers] buy milk at $1 a litre.''

The problem for Lion was not just the loss of sales from its higher margin brands such as Pura and Dairy Farmers to the cheap private label products it sold to Coles and Woolworths. It was also hit by the migration of milk sales from other channels, where margins are higher, to the major supermarkets.

But Woolworths' latest manoeuvre may also reflect the fact the tide has started to turn on cheap private label milk.

Woolworths' private label milk sales went from 307 million litres for the 2010 calendar year to 324.6 million in 2011 and declined to 316 million last year.

Milk brands such as Pauls and Dairy Farmers have started to claw back market share with their permeate-free milk at both major supermarkets, according to the industry body for dairy farmers, Dairy Australia.

''Aztec supermarket scan data to December shows branded milk has recovered supermarket sales share, to close to pre $1-per-litre milk campaign levels,'' Dairy Australia says in a recent market update.

''This has coincided with the introduction of branded permeate-free product lines and increased promotional activity.''

But a clearer picture of where things are headed might be provided by market darling A2, which has doubled the value of its sales over the past two years to 6.9 per cent of the grocery sector.

At the opening of A2's NSW plant last year, Michael Perich, who runs the dairy at one of its main suppliers in Australia, the Leppington Pastoral Company, says the milk discounting wars may have had an unexpected effect in focusing public attention on those brands offering a point of difference. He says this is why A2 is thriving - ''the price wars have actually helped that because consumers have seen the point of difference''.

Dairy Australia names provenance as another issue, which appears to be reflected in this week's initiative by Woolworths.

''Interest in greater provenance is also likely to have some bearing on new supply and marketing arrangements for fresh drinking milk,'' the industry body says in its report.

Coles says it is ahead of the game on this front as well. It already partners directly with farmer-owned groups across Australia with offerings such as the Great Ocean Road brand of milk and cheese by Warrnambool Cheese & Butter. In NSW, it works closely with Bega Cheese and Norco; in Western Australia, it has Harvey Fresh, and it has Tamar Valley Dairy in Tasmania.

''Coles is continuing to look at opportunities to grow our milk, cheese and yoghurt business direct with farmer-owned groups,'' it says.

This may not be of much help for Parmalat and Lion, which are still struggling with increased costs from going permeate-free, higher spending on marketing to get on the front foot with consumers, and lower sales of fresh milk.

Permeate - a watery, greenish waste product from the production of cheese - was added to milk to cut costs until Fairfax Media revealed the practice last year.

Internal documents from Lion's subsidiary National Foods - which makes Pura, Big M, Dairy Farmers and supplies Woolworths and Coles brand milk - revealed $23,000 could be saved by adding 16 per cent permeate to the production of 350,000 litres of whole milk.

This shaves almost 16 per cent of the cost off the price of production, and does not have to be disclosed on the label.

This cost saving is now gone for Lion, Parmalat and the supermarket giants, which have also ensured all private label offerings are permeate free.

''Increased sales volumes have not offset the decline in the average fresh white milk supermarket retail price,'' Dairy Australia says, adding the impact of the supermarket home brands going permeate free has yet to be felt.

No squeeze on profits at dairy's success story

Not everyone has been a loser in the milk wars. A2 Corporation has sidestepped the industry carnage and doubled the market share of its milk, in dollar terms, across Australia's supermarkets over the past two years in the face of price cuts by all its major rivals.

The A2 pitch is built on the A2 beta-casein protein which, it says, ''may assist with your digestive well-being''.

The protein is found in the milk of certain dairy cows. The A2 company started identifying these cows with genetic tests and milking them separately to offer consumers milk consisting of the A2 protein rather than A1.

The health claims around this protein have acted as the cornerstone of the milk's appeal and led to massive growth despite the product being priced at a significant premium to the competition.

''We would say A2 is the only brand that has genuinely differentiated positioning compared to other brands and private label,'' said the head of its Australian business, Peter Nathan.

The New Zealand company has grown so strongly it invested $15 million in a processing plant near Camden, south-west of Sydney, last year to meet growing demand for its dairy products.

''Milk brands that are communicating apparent health benefits, such as A2 - which have more than doubled value share in the past two years - show that shoppers will pay a premium when making product selections to suit their wants and desires,'' said Kosta Conomos, the head of Nielsen's retail industry group.

Mr Nathan said the company's fast growth had not been impeded by the significant marketing spend of the major milk vendors, which have gone permeate free.

''If that was the reason for our growth, that would have hit us very badly,'' Mr Nathan said.

''Our growth has accelerated even during the time that brands have taken out permeate.''

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After two years of heavy discounting, the tide seems to be turning against private brands as new tactics are deployed. The photo ops don't get much friendlier than the cow sheds at Sydney's Royal Easter Show, and Woolworths was playing it for all it was worth this week, when it announced plans to buy direct from a group of NSW dairy farmers in order to give them a ''better deal for their milk''.

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Supermarket brand milk or not, Craig Reucassel finds out who's telling white lies about milk prices, and who's helping farmers. http://thecheckout.net.au http://facebook.com/checkouttv http://twitter.com/checkouttv #thecheckout

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resource - Scaffolding through case study

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general resource - List of goods produced by child/forced labour

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general resource - List of goods produced by child/forced labour

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Error 404 - Page Not Found - U.S. Department of Labor

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The page you requested wasn’t found on our website. If you followed the link from another website, the link they provided may be outdated. Please check our Topics area or our A-Z Index to find what you are looking for.

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Fresh food standards and restrictions in supermarkets 

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Fresh food standards and restrictions in supermarkets 

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ABC iview : War On Waste Stories - Series 1 Ep 1: Banana Farming

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War On Waste Stories - Series 1 Ep 1: Banana Farming : Bananas are Australia's number one selling supermarket product. Craig visits a Queensland banana farm to find out what happens to the bananas that aren't up to supermarket specifications.

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general resource - intro to globalisation, trade and poverty

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general resource - intro to globalisation, trade and poverty

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Globalization and Trade and Poverty: Crash Course Economics #16

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Fresh food standards and restrictions in supermarkets 

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Fresh food standards and restrictions in supermarkets 

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It is estimated that between 20 and 40 per cent of fruit and vegetables grown in Australia is rejected even before it reaches the supermarket because the produce does not meet cosmetic standards.

But new technology and innovation from producers is finding interesting ways to put those rejects to good use.

Here are a few of those innovators.

"My inspiration came from the pure joy of the technology in attacking waste, because I hate the thought of us throwing out beautiful fresh fruit and vegetables," Freeze Dry Industries chief executive Michael Buckley said.

Freeze-dried food was once the staple of astronauts, but the technology could be the solution to saving billions of dollars' worth of wasted Australian produce.

The Sunshine Coast food processor is becoming a valuable outlet for farmers looking to make money from produce that would otherwise go in the bin.

"We invest a lot of money and time growing things, watering them, fertilising them, and harvesting them, so not only is it wasteful, but it's also a big cost burden on the horticulture industry," Doriana Mangili from Sweeter Banana Cooperative said.

The cooperative, in Western Australia's Gascoyne region, has reduced food wastage by more than 90 per cent, thanks to industry collaboration, and value-adding efforts.

Formed in 2009, the cooperative markets 'seconds' produce as a lower-cost alternative, freezing unwanted fruit to supply a smoothie company, and baking banana bread.

"When we are drying foods and powdering foods, seconds are brilliant because people do not want them, and I can turn them into something," South Australian producer Joy White said.

Ms White experiments with a variety of 'ugly' produce, powdering and packaging the end result and selling it online and at markets.

From pickles, peaches, raspberries and even brussel sprouts, the powder is seeing a growing demand in barbeque rubs, or a substitute in smoothies and desserts.

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What is being done with billions of dollars of rejected Australian produce?

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It is estimated that between 20 and 40 per cent of fruit and vegetables grown in Australia is rejected even before it reaches the supermarket because the produce does not meet cosmetic standards. But new technology and innovation from producers is finding interesting ways to put those rejects to good use.

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EPISODE SYNOPSIS: A lot of our clothes bear the label 'Made in Bangladesh'. But before the deadly collapse of a garment factory there last April, most of us never thought about the people who make them. After clothes bound for Canada were found in the rubble of Rana Plaza, Canadian companies reacted with surprise - how could such a tragedy happen?

the fifth estate 's Mark Kelley went to Bangladesh and tracked down workers who say they are still forced to make clothes for Canada in dangerous conditions. And Kelley goes behind bars for an exclusive interview with the jailed owner of one of the biggest factories inside Rana Plaza, who details his long-standing, multi-million dollar connections to Canada. .

Share your thoughts on Made in Bangladesh below

By: Tarannum Kamlani

Who made that T-shirt you're wearing? The one so stylish and cheap you had to have it in 5 different colours?

Until April 24, 2013 not many of us really thought about the hands that made that shirt, or where it was made.

On that day when the 8-story Rana Plaza came crashing down in Dhaka Bangladesh, the world became transfixed by the endless stream of bodies and the harrowing stories of survivors.

As the body count grew - eventually topping more than 1,100 -- so did the questions about how such a tragedy could happen and why companies behind the clothing brands we all love were connected to clothes being made in such dangerous conditions.

In Canada, the story hit close to the bone, when tags and clothing bearing the name "Joe Fresh"appeared in the rubble.

Fast Fashion -- the cheap, trendy clothing that changes every few weeks rather than once a season -- was suddenly under greater scrutiny than ever.

And so, in the weeks following the tragedy, the fifth estate set out on a mission: How did clothes from Loblaw's Joe Fresh brand end up being made in Rana Plaza? And what did Canadian retailers really know about how their clothes were being made?

The Birth of A Shirt

The journey of any garment begins with its design, a concept that flows from a designer's pen.

Speaking with a designer willing to talk openly about how their ideas came into being in Bangladeshi factories proved difficult -- but one designer decided to speak out.

Sujeet Sennik is a former designer with Walmart Canada. He started his career in haute couture in the early 1990s, with Christian Dior and Balenciaga in Paris, before eventually making it back home to Canada and his job with Walmart.

He soon began to feel the pressure of having to make his designs come alive faster and cheaper, and that meant getting them made in one of the cheapest places in the world to make clothes -- Bangladesh.

Bangladesh is now the second largest exporter of readymade garments in the world after China. In Canada, retailers began flocking to the country after Ottawa dropped import duties from Bangladesh back in 2003. The result? Imports from Bangladesh to Canada shot up by 618%.

Add to that the fact that the country has the lowest monthly minimum wage for garment workers at $38 a month, and it made Bangladesh irresistible to purveyors of fast fashion.

"I would say that there was a natural flow towards Bangladesh because of fast fashion in the last 10 years, and trying to get clothes cheaper and cheaper," says Sennik.

Factories in Bangladesh had no option but to take the terms on the table, according to Sennik. "They can't say no to, to a hundred thousand units. That means a very long time that the factory is going to be sitting idle if they don't get that order."

Sennik soon began to question what corners were being cut to make clothes at such low prices. His unease intensified in November 2012.

That's when the Tazreen Fashions Factory caught on fire. It was a 9-storey building, though the owner only had a permit for 3 storeys. There were no fire escapes and many doors were blocked by boxes. Windows were barred shut. Months before the blaze the factory's fire safety certificate had been revoked. Most of the 112 workers who died were burned alive.

Five months later, in April of this year, when Rana Plaza collapsed, Sennik says his nightmare had come true. He remembers being called into a meeting where he and others were informed that Walmart had used factories in that building in the past.

He was stunned at the response of those around him. "1000 people died, no one said a thing. They didn't, they didn't say anything about them, they just talked about their, the loss in terms of units, how are they going to make up their margins? --- so I sat there, and I said nothing, shame on me," he says, still shaken by the memory.

Sennik decided he had had enough, and could no longer go to work in an industry that he says could have knowingly been putting so many lives at risk. So he made the life-changing decision to quit his job and see the truth for himself.

Sennik journeyed to Bangladesh with the fifth estate, determined to see for himself where his designs had come to life.

the fifth estate bought a shirt designed by Sennik from a Walmart store in the Toronto area and brought it to Bangladesh.

Who Really Made The Shirt?

To match clothes with the factories they came from, the fifth estate turned to a database of shipping records collected by a U.S. company called Import Genius, which collects shipping records and other data from US Customs. Through this database, we were able to track shipments from Bangladesh to Canada which passed through a US port.

The shipping records led the fifth estate to a factory in Dhaka called Hasan Tanvir Fashion Wears. After factory managers declined repeated requests to visit the factory, co-host Mark Kelley showed up at the factory, with the shipping records and the shirt designed by Sennik in hand. Factory managers came out of the gates to speak to the fifth estate but denied having anything to do with making the shirt.

Meeting The Workers

Faced with point blank denial from Hasan Tanvir's managers, Kelley and former Walmart designer Sujeet Sennik decided to ask workers from the factory if they recognized the shirt.

So a meeting was arranged at one of the workers homes, after work. They asked the fifth estate not to identify them for fear of losing their jobs.

Sennik and co-host Mark Kelley met 9 workers from the Hasan Tanvir factory. The workers described it as a dangerous place to work, where their safety was a low priority.

When they were shown Sennik's shirt, they immediately recognized it and even remembered which on floor of the multi-storey factory they believe it was made.

One worker held the shirt and told Sennik she had sewed the sleeve.

Her employer, Hasan Tanvir is a factory that Walmart put on its Unapproved Factories database last June. It's a list of factories that have failed its audits. So why was Walmart using a factory it had deemed unsuitable to make its clothing nearly three months later in August when the fifth estate met with the workers?

When the fifth estate later asked Walmart for an explanation they told us that that Hasan Tanvir was indeed making shirts for them, just not our shirt. The factory was being allowed to complete one final order in an effort to transition production without causing undue disruption to it.

A Canadian Fast Fashion Icon Comes to Bangladesh

The rise of fast fashion is tied to what's been dubbed the "race to the bottom" -- where the cheapest prices win. And some say the front runner in that race is Loblaw's clothing brand, Joe Fresh. A critical hit on fashion week runways in Toronto, the brand soon bounced its way to one of the top spots in the children's wear market in Canada.

Mimran seemed to have found a winning formula, telling the CBC in 2010 he was creating "fashion that would play across the country....at amazing price points"

When Mimran and Loblaw Chairman Galen Weston faced the media in the week following the collapse of Rana Plaza, both men appeared shaken by the tragedy but stressed their commitment to the highest standards in ethical sourcing.

Mimran told reporters, "I've been involved in ethical sourcing my entire career. It's been over 25 years and I've been sourcing from all over Asia. And Joe Fresh apparel is where I along with all of my colleagues work every day to ensure that we have the highest standards of ethical sourcing"

Loblaw's own shipping records indicate hundreds of thousands of garments were made at Rana Plaza, the site of the deadly collapse, and then sold in Canada after the tragedy.

With a hidden camera the fifth estate visited six Joe Fresh stores in Toronto three months after the collapse and found clothes for sale that had been made in Rana Plaza. Many sales associates either denied or were unaware that clothing from Rana Plaza was still being sold in their stores.

the fifth estate wanted to know just how deep that commitment was in the years that Loblaw made Joe Fresh apparel in Bangladesh before the building collapsed.

At the time of the collapse, a company named New Wave Style was making clothes for Joe Fresh. The owner, a man named Bazlus Samad Adnan surrendered to police in the days following the collapse. And while his fate garnered far less attention than that of Sohel Rana -- the owner of Rana Plaza who was caught trying to flee the country -- it became clear Adnan could provide some insight into Loblaw's interactions with its suppliers.

the fifth estate petitioned the Bangladeshi government for permission to speak with Adnan. Permission was granted, but no cameras or recording equipment would be allowed in the interview.

In an exclusive interview, Bazlus Samad Adnan told the fifth estate 's Mark Kelley that he had been making clothes for Joe Fresh since 2007. Adnan said the company was his biggest client, bringing in about $6 million a year.

Adnan also said a ninth floor was under construction so he could do more work for his customers.

"Everybody is doing this. They all squeezed me. But Joe Fresh was a very good customer. Their policy was just ship it on time," he told the fifth estate.

Are Audits Enough?

Adnan confirmed that Joe Fresh orders were usually placed through a third party, a buying house based in India called House of Pearl, now incorporated as Pearl Global Industries.

Problems in the supply chain often develop when retailers rely on third parties to get their clothes made. Orders are sometimes placed with factories that are not approved by retailers, something known as unauthorized subcontracting.

the fifth estate asked both Loblaw and House of Pearl about their relationships with New Wave style. Loblaw would not go into details about its dealings with New Wave Style except to say that its factories inside Rana Plaza had passed internationally recognized auditing procedures. In an email, a spokesperson from Loblaw added that "we, and our third party audit firms, visited our vendor factories located inside Rana Plaza."

House of Pearl told the fifth estate that New Wave Style was added to its roster of supplier factories because it had passed internationally recognized audits. In an email, a spokesperson said the company "has strict requirements for technical and ethical standards from its suppliers and works closely with its international fashion retail clients to ensure that high standards are maintained throughout the supply chain, which includes audits"

For his part, Adnan could not name any Loblaw employee who came to visit his factories. He said that no one from either House of Pearl or Loblaw had visited or spoken with him since the collapse.

After Rana Plaza came down, companies like Loblaw and Walmart defended their business practices in Bangladesh, saying that the factories they chose to work with had to go through stringent auditing processes.

Until Rana Plaza came down, none of the industry's standard auditing procedure included ensuring that factories were structurally sound. This despite dozens of factory fires and collapses and hundreds of worker deaths in the decade before Rana Plaza seized the world's attention.

Kalpona Akter, executive director of the Bangladesh Centre for Worker Solidarity and the country's most well known worker rights activist told the fifth estate 's Mark Kelley that no one in the industry appeared to care.

"The government, they really don't do strong monitoring and the buyers who really have fake auditing system.... [they] really don't care what is the real condition of these factories. So that really escalated [until] Rana Plaza [happened]," she says.

According to Barry Laxer, a Canadian who runs two factories in Bangladesh, all retailers want is to ensure that their clothing is made at the cheapest price possible. The brands' reliance on third party inspectors allows them to distance themselves from the work being done on the ground.

"A lot of companies just want cheap manufacturing. So, they don't really look," he says. "Because if you don't ask the questions, you don't get the answers that you don't want to hear."

Perhaps it was this distance that left Loblaw unaware of the fact that the day before the Rana Plaza collapse, the building had been evacuated after cracks had been seen in the walls. the fifth estate asked Loblaw whether anyone in the company had been informed about this. They told us by email: "We learned about the evacuation from media reports in the days following the collapse."

Another deadly fire six months after the Rana Plaza disaster that killed 10 workers showed the continuing problems with safety in Bangladesh garment factories that supply Canadian stores.

Shipping records obtained by the fifth estate indicated that Joe Fresh, received tens of thousands of cartons of clothing or fabric this year from the Aswad Composite Mills facility just outside the capital.

Loblaw first denied placing orders with this factory, but after CBC provided them with the records, Loblaw responded, "We have seen documents that suggest there may have been such unauthorized production and we are investigating."

A Teenaged Survivor Speaks

the fifth estate wanted to know what life was like for someone who worked at Rana Plaza making clothes for Joe Fresh. The team tracked down a young girl named Aruti.

She says she is 17. But her grandmother says she is really 15. Kelley showed her a pair of Joe Fresh shorts bought in Canada. She told him she sewed pocket seams -- 150 of them an hour. Her days were gruelling; 12 hours a day, 7 days a week. And if there was a rush order, she had to put in overtime. She told Kelley that her employers pushed the workers hard, verbally abusing them if they weren't working fast enough.

Aruti told the fifth estate she had been in the garment industry for 3 years, possibly making her just 12 when she first started. Although she had dreams of going to school and becoming a teacher or a doctor, poverty pushed her into a readily available job in the garment industry alongside her mother.

On the day of the collapse, Aruti was on the sixth floor. She and other workers had been evacuated from Rana Plaza the day before after cracks had been seen in the building. Her boss phoned her at home and told her to go in to work the next day or be fired.

When the building came down, Aruti told Kelley she did not think she would survive, pinned beneath two dead bodies for three days. She was eventually rescued, but lost her leg. Aruti survived. Her mother perished with 1,127 others.

Looking at the Joe Fresh shorts Kelley showed her, the 15-year-old was reminded of how her world changed on that day in April. "I feel sad. If I didn't work in that factory... this wouldn't have happened. So.. I feel very bad seeing these pants," she says.

As for compensation from Loblaw... she says she still hoping.

Loblaw declined our requests for an interview. Instead they sent us an email saying they've contributed a million dollars to two charities, and joined a compliance accord with other retailers aimed at improving working conditions in Bangladesh. The company says it will now put "boots on the ground in the region" to inspect factories further.

The Man In Charge

After Rana Plaza collapsed, the Bangladeshi government scrambled to assure nervous Western retailers and their customers that Bangladesh was a safe place to do business.

But a brief tour of the capital Dhaka proved it was all too easy to find evidence even basic standards expected by most international retailers were being flouted. Mark Kelley walked into a jute factory using toxic dyes -- where none of the workers or the children they had to bring to work with them -- were wearing masks.

Another factory dumping toxic multi-coloured waste into a river. Using a hidden camera the fifth estate saw another factory employing children aged 10 and under operating textile looms.

the fifth estate arranged an interview with Atiqul Islam, president of the Bangladesh Garment Manufacturers and Exporters Association, the garment industry's self regulating body -- the man Canadian retailers deal with. He is a prominent factory owner in his own right. He's made clothes for Walmart Canada, Loblaw and HBC.

En route to the interview, Kelley encountered hundreds of protesting garment workers staging a demonstration outside the headquarters of the BGMEA. They told him they had been beaten by thugs employed by their factory owner simply for demanding a month's work of wages.

When Kelley asked for his thoughts about the protest, Islam said abused workers should just quit and find work elsewhere.

"This is completely open industry. If you don't like there you can go the other work there. We have a 25% worker shortage in the industry, still today," he says.

When asked about the child labour, pollution and dangerous working conditions, Islam insisted the industry was changing for the better.

Kelley then asked the persistent problem of illegal subcontracting; when a factory gives one of their orders to another factory without the retailer's permission. Kelley showed Islam the shirt designed by former Walmart designer Sujeet Sennik.

Walmart confirmed to the fifth estate they gave Islam the order to make Sennik's shirt, but at his own factory, not Hasan Tanvir. But the workers at Hasan Tanvir told Mark Kelley they made the shirt.

Islam said that clothes he was contracted to make were always made in his factories. But once the interview was wrapped up, he took the shirt and walked to his desk for closer examination. the fifth estate 's cameras captured him doing something with a pen behind his desk.

Later, the team discovered that the tag on the shirt had been tampered with. The Canadian Import number and barcode which could connect his company to the shirt had been blacked out. When asked about it the following day, Islam denied doing anything to the shirt.

A Monument To Greed

Before he left Bangladesh, the fifth estate took former Walmart designer Sujeet Sennik to see what remains of Rana Plaza.

Gazing down at the rubble, now covered with water, Sennik was astonished at the disconnect between what he was seeing and knowing that people back home were walking around wearing clothes that were made in such deadly conditions.

"This is a monument to greed," he said. "This has got to be the bottom. It shouldn't go lower than this. People know about this now. It can't continue like this."

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Made in Bangladesh - Episodes - The Fifth Estate

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Mark Kelley went to Bangladesh after the disaster and tracked down the garment workers who said they were still forced to make clothes in dangerous conditions for Canadian companies. the fifth estate has won a 2014 International Emmy® Award for our investigation into the Rana Plaza collapse in Bangladesh.

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Some labor advocates found that explanation unconvincing. "They don't say who did it, they don't say where in the factory it was done, they don't say how they learned it," said Scott Nova, executive director of the Worker Rights Consortium, a monitoring group in Washington. "Regardless of what sparked the fire, it is clear that the unsafe nature of this factory and the actions taken by management once the fire started were the primary contributors to the horrendous death toll."

Bangladeshi officials have been under intense domestic and international pressure to investigate the blaze and charge those deemed responsible. Families of the victims have demanded legal action against Mr. Hossain. Labor advocates have argued that the global brands using the factory also shared in the responsibility for the tragedy.

Fires have been a persistent problem in Bangladesh's garment industry for more than a decade, with hundreds of workers killed over the years. Mr. Khandaker said his inquiry recommended the creation of a government task force to oversee regular inspections of factories and uphold the rights of workers.

Bangladesh has more than 4,500 garment factories, which employ more than four million workers, many of them young women. The industry is crucial to the national economy as a source of employment and foreign currency. Garments constitute about four-fifths of the country's manufacturing exports, and the industry is expected to grow rapidly.

But Bangladesh's manufacturing formula depends on keeping wages low and restricting the rights of workers. The minimum wage in the garment industry is $37 a month, unions are almost nonexistent, and garment workers have taken to the streets in recent years in sometimes violent protests over wages and work conditions.

Workers at Tazreen Fashions had staged small demonstrations in the months before the fire, demanding wages they were owed. On the night of the fire, more than 1,150 people were inside the eight-story building, working overtime shifts to fill orders for various international brands. Fire officials say the fire broke out in the open-air ground floor, where large mounds of fabric and yarn were illegally stored; Bangladeshi law requires that such flammable materials be stored in a room with fireproof walls.

The blaze quickly spread across the length of the ground floor - roughly the size of a football field - as fire and toxic smoke filtered up through the building's three staircases. The factory lacked a sprinkler system or an outdoor fire escape; employees were supposed to use interior staircases, and many escaped that way.

But on some floors, managers ordered workers to ignore a fire alarm and stay to work. Precious minutes were lost. Then, as smoke and fire spread throughout the building, many workers were trapped, unable to descend the smoke-filled staircases and blocked from escape by iron grilles on many windows. Desperate workers managed to break open some windows and leap to the roof of a nearby building and safety. Others simply jumped from upper floors to the ground.

"We have also found unpardonable negligence of midlevel officials at the factory," Mr. Khandaker said. "They prevented workers from coming down. We recommend taking proper legal measures against them."

Mr. Khandaker listed a host of violations at Tazreen Fashions: managers on some floors closed collapsible gates to block workers from running down the staircases, the ground-floor warehouse was illegal and the building's escape plan improper, and the factory lacked a required closed-circuit television monitoring system. None of the fire extinguishers in the factory appeared to have been used on the night of the fire, suggesting poor preparedness and training.

Moreover, Mr. Khandaker said, the factory lacked a required fire safety certificate. It had applied for an annual renewal, but a certificate had not yet been issued.

Asked about the allegation of sabotage, Mr. Khandaker said that investigators had found no evidence of an electrical short circuit, and that eyewitnesses had suggested possible foul play. He said the report recommended a full criminal investigation into the matter.

"It seems to us that it was sabotage," he said. "Somebody set the fire."

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Bangladesh Finds Gross Negligence in Factory Fire

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Some labor advocates found that explanation unconvincing. "They don't say who did it, they don't say where in the factory it was done, they don't say how they learned it," said Scott Nova, executive director of the Worker Rights Consortium, a monitoring group in Washington.

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Aldi frozen seafood and allegations of participating in slave trade

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Aldi frozen seafood and allegations of participating in slave trade

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Slaves forced to work for no pay for years at a time under threat of extreme violence are being used in Asia in the production of seafood sold by major US, British and other European retailers, the Guardian can reveal.

A six-month investigation has established that large numbers of men bought and sold like animals and held against their will on fishing boats off Thailand are integral to the production of prawns (commonly called shrimp in the US) sold in leading supermarkets around the world, including the top four global retailers: Walmart, Carrefour, Costco and Tesco.

The investigation found that the world's largest prawn farmer, the Thailand-based Charoen Pokphand (CP) Foods, buys fishmeal, which it feeds to its farmed prawns, from some suppliers that own, operate or buy from fishing boats manned with slaves.

Men who have managed to escape from boats supplying CP Foods and other companies like it told the Guardian of horrific conditions, including 20-hour shifts, regular beatings, torture and execution-style killings. Some were at sea for years; some were regularly offered methamphetamines to keep them going. Some had seen fellow slaves murdered in front of them.

Fifteen migrant workers from Burma and Cambodia also told how they had been enslaved. They said they had paid brokers to help them find work in Thailand in factories or on building sites. But they had been sold instead to boat captains, sometimes for as little as £250.

"I thought I was going to die," said Vuthy, a former monk from Cambodia who was sold from captain to captain. "They kept me chained up, they didn't care about me or give me any food ... They sold us like animals, but we are not animals - we are human beings."

Another trafficking victim said he had seen as many as 20 fellow slaves killed in front of him, one of whom was tied, limb by limb, to the bows of four boats and pulled apart at sea.

"We'd get beaten even if we worked hard," said another. "All the Burmese, [even] on all the other boats, were trafficked. There were so many of us [slaves] it would be impossible to count them all."

CP Foods - a company with an annual turnover of $33bn (£20bn) that brands itself as "the kitchen of the world" - sells its own-brand prawn feed to other farms, and supplies international supermarkets, as well as food manufacturers and food retailers, with frozen or cooked prawns and ready-made meals. It also sells raw prawn materials for food distributors.

In addition to Walmart, Carrefour, Costco and Tesco, the Guardian has identified Aldi, Morrisons, the Co-operative and Iceland as customers of CP Foods. They all sell frozen or cooked prawns, or ready meals such as prawn stir fry, supplied by CP Foods and its subsidiaries. CP Foods admits that slave labour is part of its supply chain.

"We're not here to defend what is going on," said Bob Miller, CP Foods' UK managing director. "We know there's issues with regard to the [raw] material that comes in [to port], but to what extent that is, we just don't have visibility."

The supply chain works in this way: Slave ships plying international waters off Thailand scoop up huge quantities of "trash fish", infant or inedible fish. The Guardian traced this fish on landing to factories where it is ground down into fishmeal for onward sale to CP Foods. The company uses this fishmeal to feed its farmed prawns, which it then ships to international customers.

The alarm over slavery in the Thai fishing industry has been sounded before by non-governmental organisations and in UN reports.

But now, for the first time, the Guardian has established how the pieces of the long, complex supply chains connect slavery to leading producers and retailers.

"If you buy prawns or shrimp from Thailand, you will be buying the produce of slave labour," said Aidan McQuade, director of Anti-Slavery International.

The Guardian conducted dozens of interviews with fishermen, boat captains, boat managers, factory owners and Thai officials in and around various ports in Thailand.Thailand enjoys a prime position as the world's largest prawn exporter in a vast seafood-export industry estimated to be worth some $7.3bn. Through multinationals such as CP Foods, Thailand ships out roughly 500,000 tonnes of prawns every year - nearly 10% of which is farmed by CP Foods alone.

Although slavery is illegal in every country in the world, including Thailand, some 21 million men, women and children are enslaved globally, according to the International Labour Organisation. These people may have been sold like property, forced to work under mental or physical threat, or find themselves controlled by their "employers". Thailand is considered a major source, transit and destination country for slavery, and nearly half a million people are believed to be currently enslaved within Thailand's borders. There is no official record of how many men are enslaved on fishing boats. But the Thai government estimates that up to 300,000 people work in its fishing industry, 90% of whom are migrants vulnerable to being duped, trafficked and sold to the sea. Rights groups have long pointed to Thailand's massive labour shortage in its fishing sector, which - along with an increased demand from the US and Europe for cheap prawns - has driven the need for cheap labour.

"We'd like to solve the problem of Thailand because there's no doubt commercial interests have created much of this problem," admits CP Foods' Miller.The Guardian's findings come at a crucial moment. After being warned for four consecutive years that it was not doing enough to tackle slavery, Thailand risks being given the lowest ranking on the US state department's human trafficking index, which grades 188 nations according to how well they combat and prevent human trafficking.

Relegation to tier 3 would put Thailand, which is grappling with the aftermath of a coup, on a par with North Korea and Iran, and could result in a downgrade of Thailand's trading status with the US.

"Thailand is committed to combatting human trafficking," said the Thai ambassador to the US, Vijavat Isarabhakdi. "We know a lot more needs to be done but we also have made very significant progress to address the problem."

Although the Thai government has told the Guardian that "combating human trafficking is a national priority", our undercover investigation unearthed a lawless and unregulated industry run by criminals and the Thai mafia - facilitated by Thai officials and sustained by the brokers who supply cheap migrant labour to boat owners.

"The Thai authorities could get rid of the brokers and arrange [legal] employment," one high-ranking Thai official, who is tasked with investigating human trafficking cases, said on condition of anonymity. "But the government doesn't want to do that, it doesn't want to take action. As long as [boat] owners still depend on brokers - and not the government - to supply workers, then the problem will never go away."

Human rights activists believe that Thailand's seafood-export industry would probably collapse without slavery. They say, there is little incentive for the Thai government to act and have called for consumers and international retailers to demand action.

"Global brands and retailers can do so much good without bringing too much risk upon themselves by simply enforcing their supplier standards, which typically prohibit forced labour and child labour," said Lisa Rende Taylor of Anti-Slavery International. "And if local businesses realise that non-compliance results in loss of business, it has the potential to bring about huge positive change in the lives of migrant workers and trafficking victims."The Guardian asked the supermarkets to comment on our finding of slavery in their supply chains.

All said they condemned slavery and human trafficking for labour. They all also pointed to systems of auditing they have in place to check labour conditions. Several retailers have joined a new initiative called Project Issara (Project Freedom) to discuss how they should respond and several attended a meeting in with the major producers in Bangkok at the end of last month at which slavery was discussed.

Walmart, the world's largest retailer, said: "We are actively engaged in this issue and playing an important role in bringing together stakeholders to help eradicate human trafficking from Thailand's seafood export sector."

Carrefour said it conducts social audits of all suppliers, including the CP factory that supplies it with some prawns. It tightened up the process after alerts in 2012. It admitted that it did not check right to the end of its complex chains.

Costco told us it would require its suppliers of Thai prawn "to take corrective action to police their feedstock sources".

A Tesco spokesperson said: "We regard slavery as completely unacceptable. We are working with CP Foods to ensure the supply chain is slavery-free, and are also working in partnership with the International Labour Organisation [ILO] and Ethical Trading Initiative to achieve broader change across the Thai fishing industry."

Morrisons said it would take the matter up with CP urgently. "We are concerned by the findings of the investigation. Our ethical trading policy forbids the use of forced labour by suppliers and their suppliers."

The Co-operative was among those saying it was already working to understand "working conditions beyond the processing level". "The serious issue of human trafficking on fishing boats is challenging to address and requires a partnership" in which it is actively engaged.

The managing director of corporate buying at Aldi UK, Tony Baines, said: "Our supplier standards, which form part of Aldi's contractual terms and conditions, stipulate that our suppliers must comply with applicable national laws, industry minimum standards and ILO and United Nations conventions of human rights, whichever standard is more stringent.

"These standards also require that suppliers do not engage in any form of forced labour and related practices. Aldi will not tolerate workplace practices and conditions which violate basic human rights."

Iceland said it only sourced one line containing prawns from a CP subsidiary but it was pleased to note that CP was "at the forefront of efforts to raise standards in the Thai fishing industry".

CP said in a statement that it believed the right thing was to use its commercial weight to try to influence the Thai government to act rather than walk away from the Thai fishing industry, although it is putting in place plans to use alternative proteins in its feed so that it can eliminate Thai fishmeal by 2021 if necessary. It said it had already tightened controls over the way its fishmeal is procured. While it recognises that workers on boats are exploited, it added that the Thai department of fisheries continues to deny that unregistered boats are a problem. "We can do nothing, and witness these social and environmental issues destroy the seas around Thailand, or we can help drive improvement plans. We are making good progress," it said.

This article was amended on 11 June 2014 as an earlier version said Thailand ships out roughly 50,000 tonnes of prawns every year. This has been corrected to say 500,000 tonnes.

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Revealed: Asian slave labour producing prawns for supermarkets in US, UK

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Slaves forced to work for no pay for years at a time under threat of extreme violence are being used in Asia in the production of seafood sold by major US, British and other European retailers, the Guardian can reveal.

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Aldi frozen seafood and allegations of participating in slave trade

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Aldi frozen seafood and allegations of participating in slave trade

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Updated December 22, 2015 13:33:09

Major Australian supermarkets have been implicated in a child labour and human trafficking scandal in Thailand.

Coles, Woolworths and Aldi supermarkets have confirmed that they source seafood from the giant company Thai Union.

A factory which Thai Union received its prawn supplies from has been accused of slave-like conditions, including bonded and child labour.

A report by the Associated Press news agency revealed that hundreds of workers at the Gig Peeling Factory outside Bangkok, which is a supplier to Thai Union, had been subject to human rights abuses.

The report described workers being sold to factories where they were beaten, detained and forced to work 16-hour days.

These shrimp peeling sheds, these places where these traffic labourers were found by AP have not been a secret, they have been in existence here for years.

Phil Robertson, deputy director of Human Rights Watch in Asia

The company is a major seafood supplier to international markets, including supermarkets in Australia.

Australian supermarket chain Coles issued a statement that said that they sourced some frozen prawns from Thai Union via an Australian agent.

The Coles statement said that the agent has confirmed that the prawns supplied to Coles were not sourced from the prawn peeling facility named in the AP report.

"Notwithstanding these assurances, Coles has initiated an investigation of our supply chain to ensure that our ethical compliance program is being properly followed," the Coles statement said.

German-owned supermarket chain ALDI confirmed they did not source prawns from Thai Union or Thailand.

But they said that Australian ALDI stories do sell canned tuna, canned chicken and canned salmon supplied by Thai Union.

It has promised to keep a close eye on the company's labour practices.

"If ALDI is notified of any issues within the supply chain, we will investigate and act swiftly to address any situation that does not meet our high standards and supplier terms and conditions," the ALDI statement said

Woolworths was unavailable to speak to ABC.

Not the first case of mistreated workers in Thai seafood industry

Phil Robertson, the deputy director of Human Rights Watch in Asia, said if Australian supermarkets and restaurants want to ensure that their supply chains do not involve bonded labour, then they would need to be more aggressive with Thai exporters to ensure that the products they are supplied are not produced with forced labour.

"These shrimp peeling sheds, these places where these traffic labourers were found by AP have not been a secret, they have been in existence here for years," Mr Robertson said.

"There have been various different instances where people have gone in and raided them."

Mr Robertson said between 2007 and 2008 there were raids on two factories which had similar abuse uncovered as that of the recent AP report on the Gig Peeling Factory.

One was the Ranya Paew shrimp processing factory in Samut Sakhon, which was raided by police and immigration officials in September 2006.

"There has been an ongoing systematic abuse of migrant workers who are brought from the border owing debts for the travel, basically smuggling to bring them down here and put in debt bonded labour," he said.

"Now the question is whether Thailand has the political commitment to clean it up or not."

Mr Robertson said the problem remains in Thailand because of a lack of commitment from many of the employers.

"They are very comfortable with this model, which allows them maximum flexibility and very low cost labour," he said.

"I think there are problems with corruption, at least the local level officials to look the other way on these kinds of abusive workplaces.

"And a lack of effective enforcement by police and the local authorities," Mr Robertson said.

He said that in some cases it appeared that local police were involved, either in terms of dealing with the brokers bringing in the labourers to the sweat shops, or in other instances being paid to look in the other direction.

Thailand's prime minister has spoken about the treatment of workers at Thai Union, but it is not clear that police will take action against the factory or its owners.

"The prime minister just came out with a statement yesterday swearing that everybody who was involved, who had broken the law, would be held accountable," Mr Robertson said.

"Hopefully that takes place, we hope that they go beyond the rhetorical commitments of the past and effectively enforce this and bring some of these those employers into the courts and if they are found guilty send them to jail for long periods of time.

"Let's see less talk and more action for a change."
Editor's note December 22, 2015: The Gig Peeling Factory is a supplier to Thai Union. It is not owned by Thai Union.
First posted December 15, 2015 20:23:40

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Supermarkets implicated in slave labour accusations against Thai seafood company

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Updated December 22, 2015 13:33:09 Major Australian supermarkets have been implicated in a child labour and human trafficking scandal in Thailand. Coles, Woolworths and Aldi supermarkets have confirmed that they source seafood from the giant company Thai Union. A factory which Thai Union received its prawn supplies from has been accused of slave-like conditions, including bonded and child labour.