One of the biggest challenges towards advancing policies for an inclusive and sustainable apparel industry is the pressure on governments to “remain cheap” by not introducing polices that could raise production costs and drive investors to competitor countries.
- Private sector competition also raises challenges, including “this notion that you need to constantly find a lower price” as a manufacturing manager put it to researchers.
- This challenge was highlighted in the paper Learning from Crisis: Apparel industry experts on mitigating the COVID-19 pandemic and future crises, published last week by the Cornell University's Global Labor Institute (GLI).
- The authors of the paper are Matthew M Fischer-Daly, Jason Judd and Sarosh Kuruvilla.
The Context: The latest paper, the third in a series, builds on a 2020 paper on the pandemic’s short-term impacts in apparel production, and GLI’s 2021 paper, Repeat, Regain or Renegotiate? The Post-COVID Future of the Apparel Industry, which explored long-term changes in the apparel industry and its post-pandemic future.
- The paper summarises national policies implemented during the first two years of the pandemic and their implications for long-term social protection in the apparel industry. It also addresses debates among apparel industry constituencies on policies for social protection, trade and human rights due diligence from an international perspective. Finally, it identifies how the sector changed during the pandemic and has the potential to inform a new generation of policymaking for the industry.
- The International Labour Organization (ILO) and the GLI (formerly the New Conversations Project) convened focus group discussions in May 2022. Participants included representatives of four governments, six apparel brands and retailers, six manufacturers and manufacturers associations, seven unions, and six labor rights organisations. The participants came from Bangladesh, Cambodia, India, Indonesia, the Netherlands, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, the United Kingdom, and the United States.
More Challenges: Private-sector competition translates into resistance by brands and retailers to regulations, particularly policies that involve binding agreements with unions.
- Another obstacle noted by all participating stakeholders was the absence of clear parties and a trusted forum for global, cross-party negotiations.
- And finally, a substantial share of major brands and retailers—online retailers and wholesalers for example—are not involved in policy discussions.
- This does not prevent substantive engagement but their absence can be an obstacle to a just and efficient distribution of risk and cost among brands and retailers themselves, as well as along the value chain.
The Thematic Areas: Five themes emerged from the group discussions:
- Existing national social protection systems and ad hoc pandemic policies were an inadequate response to the COVID-19 crisis and need urgent attention.
- There was a general deterioration in commercial terms, with significant impacts on workers, between apparel brands and retailers and the manufacturers supplying them in the months following the depths of the crisis.
- On the other hand, some brand-supplier relationships were reportedly stronger and closer since the beginning of the pandemic.
- The crisis and resulting ‘campaigns’ to mitigate its fallout drove increased international coordination within some worker and employer groups.
- A proposal by workers’ representatives for a global severance fund has provoked heightened industry discussions on the need for improved social protection, and which institutions should pay for it.
