Fairtrade Foundation - Empowering Textile Workers
The violation of rights is rife across garment manufacturing primarily due to the labour intensiveness of the industry, and the demand for low prices and short production times. Labour is provided by extremely poor and routinely exploited workers with limited or no bargaining power, and little knowledge about their rights or how to claim them.
TRAID is supporting the Fairtrade Foundation with a grant of £64,166 to investigate the ways in which Fairtrade can improve the living and working conditions of textile workers and their communities at three pilot sites in India and Bangladesh.
It will do this by empowering textile workers to access their rights, educating them about how to claim them, and creating the conditions in which workers can invest in community development through payment of a Fairtrade premium.
This work is expected to directly impact between 500 and 2,000 workers and their communities, who will benefit from improved rights awareness, advocacy skills and international market access for garments produced under Fairtrade standards. Additionally, there will also be many more indirect beneficiaries in Fairtrade textile supply chains around the world. Workers will also benefit from investment of premium funds and improved environmental management.
Fairtrade already works with parts of the textile supply chain, such as cotton growers, to ensure workers get a fair share of what they produce. However, there is no system in place for workers at other stages of the supply chain, such as textile workers, to share in Fairtrade benefits. So, while a Fairtrade cotton t-shirt will contain cotton grown on fair terms, the workers involved in making the t-shirt will not benefit. This model plans to change that by extending the reach of Fairtrade through the textile supply chain.
It will involve stakeholders at every level of the manufacturing process to ensure full and active participation of the beneficiaries, managers, retailers and local organisations. Findings from the project will contribute to an international Fairtrade strategy on how we can best address the challenges of the textile industry and ensure the development and empowerment of workers in textile supply chains around the world.
TRAID will update the website regularly with project news and developments. To find out more about Fairtrade Foundation visit www.fairtrade.org.uk
