I am a writer and executive administrator for Trusted Clothes, which is an ethical and sustainable fashion organization. The following is a series devoted in honor of the work done in collaboration with the Schroeckers and the Trusted Clothes team. Part 2 below, and 1 here.
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You argue for a living wage for workers. Why is it important for the sustainable and ethical fashion industry?
It is important across the board. I’m focused on fashion because that’s what I do for a living. It is important in a more global level as well. Fashion, clothing, and sewn products are some of the most labor intensive industries in the whole world. It is a ‘race-to-the-bottom’ industry.
Anyone interested in women’s rights, supporting those most easily exploited, eradicating poverty, would do well to look at the fashion industry because that’s the ‘bottom.’ We can find the easily exploited people there.
If these people can be paid well and treated fairly, we can do a lot to improve the rights of women and young girls, eradicate poverty, improve health outcomes, increase literacy, and so on. It is a huge issue. We need to be aware of it. In Chicago, the labor movement speaks of is $15/hour as the living wage.
So, we pay above that for our stitcher. That’s how we gauge that here, but it is different in each city and country based on the cost of living in that place.
To separate two ideas floating around in the conversation, the phrase “ethical and sustainable fashion,” but this belies two separate and related ideas. Ethical fashion on the one hand; sustainable fashion on the other hand. To start, what is the importance of ethical fashion to you?
For me, the importance is the human factor. Nobody should be dying to make our clothes. Even so, 2013 was the deadliest year on record in the fashion industry. If you look back historically, it is similar to the beginning of the 20th century in the US with the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire. People die for fashion. That’s ridiculous.
What we’re speaking of when we say ethical fashion is really baseline, sadly. People should make a living wage. A wage that allows them to live on and support a family. To be frank, $15/hour in Chicago would not be enough in Chicago, but it’s better than the minimum wage in Chicago.
Secondly, people should work in a healthy and safe environment. Sadly, that’s not the case in a lot of the garment industry, especially that which is offshored.
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Original publication on www.trustedclothes.com.
All images courtesy of www.trustedclothes.com.