Sustainability and Transparency to Safeguard Fashion Industry Workers

Abstract

The global fashion industry has the most dynamic complex supply chain. A completed garment or footwear reaches consumers through different brands, from developing countries to Western countries. The workers at the bottom of the supply chain, who work hard to produce a product, earn minimum wages. On the top of the supply chain, the owners of the factories, brands and retailers earn huge profits from these labourers’ hard work. Because of the lack of direct control over labourers, as they are not employed by the brands and retailers, they often ignore the abuse of labourers’ rights in their supply chain. To improve the fashion industries’ working conditions and to maintain workers’ rights, strong labour law and its implementation is not sufficient. The brands andretailers can play a vital role in changing the labourers’ conditions. By incorporating soft laws like the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights (UN Guiding Principles) and the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development Due Diligence Guidance for Responsible Supply Chains in the Garment and Footwear Sector (OECD Due Diligence Guidance on Garments), in their responsible business behaviour. The IFAs between the brands and the tread unions. The brands and retailers took some voluntary initiatives to incorporate these soft laws. Among the many voluntary initiatives, the Transparency Pledge of 2016 and sustainable development goals (SDGs) have had a significant impact on labour rights in the supply chain. This article is to evaluate how the Transparency Pledge of 2016 has impacted labour protection in the global fashion industry and how far transparency and incorporation on sustainable development goals (SDGs) has improved labourers’ abusive conditions in the fashion industry supply chain. This shall be done by analyzing the Human Rights Watch’s reports, ILO, better works and other labour organisations’ reports. What further initiatives can be taken to improve the labourers’ conditions.