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Far-East sweatshop workers are often paid a pittance. A protesting mass-boycott of the shops that sell £5 pairs of jeans etc can be counterproductive in that the workers might lose their jobs due to loss of demand, and therefore lose even what little income they do have.
Idea is to allow workers to
customise the garment label with their own personal email address or Paypal etc account, or some other unique form of i.d. - consumers pleased with their purchase could then send their financial appreciation and support direct to the actual maker of the garment.
Retailers could advertise this as a positive benefit of shopping with them, and make a feature of only buying from suppliers that run the scheme.
Sure, a lot of third-world workers are illiterate, let alone having access to a computer or Internet Cafe, and the scheme would also be open to abuse by unscrupulous employers who, for example, might fake labels in order skim off any donations - maybe the scheme could be run by an audited charity empowered to do spot-checks to ensure the money actually gets into the employees' hands.
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Annotation:
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Presumably the items are made by a number of individuals, you know, like on an assembly line. |
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I think that most retailers would prefer
you to be able to forget that they use
sweatshop labout. |
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There has been a global LETS, you know. That'd work if the rich parts of it weren't full of sodding hippies who never produce anything worthwhile. |
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@MB - yes, maybe needs a snappy PR name like er.. 'FairTrade' which attempts to give a similar impression - the difference would be that (if properly done.. etc...) it would actually be a one-to-one transaction/relationship - & you never know, we might end up with lifelong penpals which might open our eyes further about the whole thing. |
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You do know how those croissants are
made, don't you? Thousands of small
children, endlessly pleating and
pressing the pastry... |
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Seriously, though, I don't think this is
going to work. You need the
consumers to support a brand which
then raises standards for its employees
(along the lines of Fairtrade, maybe),
rather than trying to organise the
consumer to pay the workers directly.
Apart from anything else, your solution
offers no long-term improvement in
the situation. |
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Maybe analagous to a 'tip' - the aim being to tip the waiter, rather than the restaurant |
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Adjust the idea to include help desk and call center workers. |
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