Documents clothing industry 98 results

"Scholars often rely on static and distant images of ‘decoupling' to describe the limited influence of ‘corporate social responsibility' (CSR), among other organizational and global scripts. New insights can be gained by looking closely at how local advocates seek to leverage symbolic commitments. Leveraging can be a route to what we call ‘contingent coupling', a circumstantial shrinking of the gap between legitimating symbols and concrete conditions. Based on interview data, this article maps several modes of leveraging by examining how unions in apparel/footwear factories in Indonesia sought to use foreign brands'/retailers' CSR commitments. The modes include not only cross-border activist campaigns but also more subtle and previously overlooked forms of negotiation. Our qualitative accounts and a quantitative analysis of factories suggest that CSR has been a platform for some modest gains for Indonesian unions, but it has not allowed robust, transformative changes. This elucidation of leveraging suggests hypotheses about conditions for tighter coupling."

"In this paper we examine the sourcing strategies of clothing firms in the developed economies of the UK and Germany in the context of their national institutional framework. We argue that, as a result of their embeddedness in divergent national structures, these firms pursue different sourcing strategies and make different locational choices. We place particular emphasis on the different mix of arms' length and relational contracting that firms develop, and on the divergent degree of control over the manufacturing process and the product that they retain. We suggest that the construction of global production networks and control over supplier firms is mediated by co-ordinating firms' product strategy and the degree of dependence on national retailers this engenders. UK and German firms and their networks differ not only from each other but also from the US case which is often taken as representative of the industry."

"Homeworkers are a globally significant part of the informal workforce, commonly regarded as invisible because their work is not recognized (Burchielli et al., 2008; Prugl, 1999). In this qualitative study, we examine homeworker invisibility in the case of Argentinian garment homework using the concepts of work invisibilization and work denial.The work invisibilization concept (Krinsky and Simonet, 2012), referring to devalorized work resulting from the neoliberal agenda, is used to understand recent global trends away from standard work arrangements/protections. Arising from the social relations of domination, invisibilized work is precarious, with irregular/ non-existent employment contracts and relationships. Invisibilization thus provides a valuable lens for analysing homework, which shares key characteristics with emerging forms of invisibilized employment. Homework however, has not transformed but has always been informal, characterized by inferior standards. To account for this, we articulate a concept of denial of work.Cohen's (2001) concept of denial describes broad dimensions, including different forms, strategies and levels of denial. Adapting these, we construct a framework to analyze the denial of Argentinian garment homework, enabling a detailed examination of the specific social actors and processes involved in casting homework as non-work.In considering the denial of homework in relation to invisibilization, we argue that these are related but distinct concepts. Used together, they help explain the low-power condition of two types of garment homeworkers in Argentina while also accounting for their differences: the mostly male, migrant workers employed in clandestine workshops (such as the Bolivians interviewed in our study), and the traditional, mostly female, Argentinian garment homeworkers.Our findings suggest that Bolivian immigrant homeworkers are partially visibilized due to NGO advocacy. However, as there are no improvements to their working conditions, they remained largely invisibilized through the effects of capitalism. By contrast, traditional women homeworkers have no representation and internalize their condition: their invisibilization is explained by the cumulative effects of capitalism and patriarchy."

"Since the renaissance of market politics on a global scale, precarious work has become pervasive. Divided into two parts, the first section of this cross-disciplinary book analyses the different forms of precarious work that have arisen over the past thirty years. These transformations are captured in ethnographically orientated chapters on sweatshops; day labour; homework; unpaid contract work of Chinese construction workers; the introduction of insecure contracting in the Korean automotive industry; and the insecurity of Brazilian cane cutters. The editors and contributors then collectively explore trade union initiatives in the face of precarious work and stimulate debate on the issue."

"The introduction of the National Minimum Wage (NMW) had potentially significant implications for small firms. Orthodox economic theory predicts adverse consequences, though institutional analysis points to potential efficiency as well as fairness effects. Using longitudinal data on 55 firms, this paper examines the impact of the NMW in small firms in clothing manufacture and hotel and catering. Different patterns of adjustment were observed, explained by both size and sector characteristics. Overall, the impact of the NMW was mediated by the informality of employment relations in the small firm."

"The US apparel industry employed over 1 million workers as late as 1980, but today it employs only about one-third of that number. The common explanation for this collapse is the delocalization of production to low wage countries, but this neglects advantages of speed, flexibility and proximity to centres of fashion and design that have helped some suppliers in high wage countries, such as Italy, to defend niche markets for fashionable products. This paper examines the question of why the US apparel industry has failed to tap these advantages. Based upon the analysis of both national data and original field research in the New York garment industry, it argues that the US industry has relied too long on an industry model based on ‘mass fashion' products, the scale and scope economies of large-scale suppliers and mass retailers, and innovations in information technologies as sources of competitiveness, while ignoring the importance of niche product innovation, small-scale supply chains and flexible retailing, and ‘collaboration economies' in design and production networks. Even in New York City, where small firms and fashion markets are important, the dominance of the large-scale mass-fashion model has inhibited contractors from developing highly productive and entrepreneurial supply networks that combine design with manufacturing and take full advantage of their potential for speed, flexibility and quality production."

"The call crowns European trade unions' long-standing efforts to bring MSD into the European debate. The ETUC and TUTB mounted a European campaign in 1997 to put the prevention of MSD at the top of the European workplace health and safety policy agenda and contribute to the actions of its affiliated national trade unions and European industry federations. The report written by Jeremy Hague and his colleagues on the Clothing Industry comes as the latest addition to the array of publications produced by the TUTB to support this European wide campaign.
An industry-based survey was felt the best way to get insights into specific MSD problems, current scientific knowledge and solutions. The clothing industry offers an object lesson in repetitive work and MSD risk factors with pay systems traditionally linked to work pace. The industry has been forced into wholesale restructuring in recent decades by fierce global market competition. The resulting intensification of work has led to worse working conditions and a higher incidence of MSD.
This report offers a comprehensive review of existing scientific knowledge related to MSD in the textile and clothing industry. It also examines organizational changes in the sector, considering established and emerging health and safety issues. At the same time, it presents practical examples of how trade union mobilization and participatory approaches have addressed MSD problems in different workplaces across Europe. "

This new monograph examines OHS in the Textile, Clothing and Footwear (TCF) industry. The study involved an assessment of the incidence and patterns of work-related injury and illness amongst 100 factory-based TCF workers, which was compared with the injury patterns identified amongst 100 outworkers.
It was found that overuse injury was the most common condition in both groups, although the factory-based workers had a far lower incidence than did outworkers. However bonus and piecework payment systems significantly increased the probability of an overuse injury amongst factory-based TCF workers. Factory-based TCF workers were heavily reliant on their supervisors and union officials for any OHS preventive information. Outworkers had no readily available access to OHS supports, and were vulnerable to the "middlemen" who provided them with work.