Today is Fashion Revolution Day, a day to pay attention to where your clothing comes from and what you can do to make a difference for those who sew it for you. Today, April 24th 2014, marks the first anniversary of the Rana Plaza factory collapse, the deadliest of many terrible incidents in the garment industry.
Since January I have been working with the grade 6 teacher and students at Hawthorne II Bilingual Alternative school as a visiting artist-educator. As a class, we have been learning about labour conditions in the garment industry, and researching the origins of our own clothing using thoughtful inquiry questions that the students themselves developed. Our work together meets the 2013 social studies expectations for grade 6: People and Environments: Canada’s Interactions with the Global Community as well as visual arts expectations.
The students are spreading awareness by creating a fabric map showing disastrous and exploitive labour conditions in the garment industry. They are using sewing, embroidery and appliqué to create the map, thus learning more about what sewing work is like which connects them to garment workers whose numbers include children and teenagers. See the pictures of their work in progress.
I am so impressed by the insight, caring and work ethic of these students. They are sincerely motivated to make change for the better and I believe that they have that power. The companies we buy from will listen if we send them a message that this still matters, that we have not forgotten, and that we their customers demand that they make profound changes to prevent this from happening again.
To learn more about the issue, read on:
The issue: The clothing industry has a poor record when it comes to workers’ rights, prioritizing cheap fast delivery over safety and a living wage.
Why this is important: Because many clothing companies are either unaware of or not willing to pay to change dehumanizing and often dangerous conditions of the people who sew our clothing, there has been a string of preventable disasters. The deadliest ever in the garment industry was the collapse of the Rana Plaza factory in Dhaka, Bangladesh, one year ago on April 24th 2013, killing over 1100 workers and maiming many more. Many companies have made amends but others have not made the least effort to help resolve the problem. Yet apparently it would cost us just 10 cents extra per garment to make clothing factories safe for workers, and not much more to provide them with a living wage.
There is a long ugly history of exploitation in this industry, dating back to the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire and including the enslavement of millions of Africans for cotton as well as sugar production. This story has continued because until recently the workers who made our clothing were hidden from our view. But now global communications connects us with families on the far side of the world.
News and Resources Hear about children working in the garment industry: http://www.thestar.com/news/world/clothesonyourback/2013/10/11/i_got_hired_at_a_bangladesh_sweatshop_meet_my_9yearold_boss.html
Find out which companies have begun to create change and which are ignoring the situation in the Toronto Star and the CBC’s ongoing series of articles: http://www.thestar.com/news/world/2014/04/24/rana_plaza_survivors_get_first_compensation_payments.html
Check up on brands by looking at the Clean Clothes Campaign’s reports such as:
http://www.cleanclothes.org/livingwage/tailoredwages/tailored-wage-report
Cass's 