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Fashioncheck
Theory versus pratice
So, what is the website about?

www.fashioncheck.net is designed to inform consumers about the policies and practices of garment and sportswear companies and about the conditions in which their goods are manufactured. The website provides ideas for action to help improve working conditions in the garment industry. By raising your voice you can put pressure on companies to improve  working conditions in the garment industry and make sure that international labour standards are observed.

As a result of ongoing pressure from activists, many garment companies have developed a policy to deal with poor working conditions in their supply chains. While some companies adopted their policy with the aim of genuinely improving working conditions, others seem to be more interested in cleaning up  their image and have adopted codes of conduct [hyperlink to Terminology guide] as mere window-dressing”.  For people who want to know the real story behind a brand, this can be very confusing and misleading.

www.fashioncheck.net aims to provide more transparency about the  corporate social responsibility (CSR) policies of garment companies and measures their progress against what the Clean Clothes Campaign believes to be minimum standards. The company profiles on this website point to the weaknesses in companies’ approach and mention those violations of workers’ rights that have become known to the Clean Clothes Campaign, but also recognize the (first) steps the companies may have taken to improve conditions. www.fashioncheck.net can therefore be of help to consumers who have questions about the conditions in which their clothes were produced. Please do not see www.fashioncheck.net as a complete answer but rather as a starting point and as a means of keeping up the pressure on companies. Garment companies need to be under the constant scrutiny of workers, researchers, NGOs and consumers. Working conditions in the garment industry will only improve if we continue to call for fairer working and living conditions for garment workers.

www.fashioncheck.net does not give a complete picture of the prevailing working conditions in the supply chain of specific companies. The garment industry is far too complex for such an approach. Parts of a single garment can be produced in numerous facilities in different countries before they are  eventually sewn together. The manufacture of garments  involves agents, factories and subcontractors. Added to that, more than 30 million people are employed in the industry, many of them working from their homes or hidden sweatshops, which makes  it impossible to give the full picture. Meanwhile, violations of workers’ rights are commonplace, as can be seen in the ‘what is the problem’ chapter of this website. Even with the best CSR policy in place, it can never be fully guaranteed that there will be no violations of workers’ rights throughout the supply chain of a specific brand or  company.

The CSR policy formulated by a company can nevertheless give a good indication of whether or not the company takes its social responsibilities seriously. But it is not a guarantee. Whereas the absence,  for example, of a decent code of conduct is definitely not a good sign, the fact that a good code is in place does not necessarily mean that the company is performing well in ethical terms.

The focus of www.fashioncheck.net is on the CSR policy of garment and sportswear brands and retailers.  What methodology does the company use to monitor whether or not the conditions in supply chains comply with international labour standards? The Clean Clothes Campaign strongly believes that in order to improve labour conditions, garment companies, NGOs and trade unions must cooperate. This is done within so-called Multi Stakeholder Initiatives (MSI). The company profiles tell you if a garment company is a member of such an initiative.

It also tells you whether any violations of workers’ rights have been brought to the attention of the CCC. However, no knowledge of violations does not necessarily mean that no violations have taken place. You can imagine for instance that the CCC is not very likely to hear about factories where workers are not allowed to organise in unions and are intimidated into keeping silent about working conditions for fear of losing their jobs. Similarly, the CCC receives less information about conditions in the supply chains of smaller and lesser known brands and retailers.

The information in the profiles is based on the companies’ response to a questionnaire sent to them in 2007* and on additional research based on documents provided by the company and on information which is publicly available mainly on the internet. Where appropriate, recent developments in company policies are also mentioned.

Please consider www.fashioncheck.net as an indication  of the social responsibility performance of a company not as an exhaustive or complete exercise. www.fashioncheck.net can only be a snapshot of the situation at a given moment.

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Terminology Guide

*  Some profiles are only based on research from CCC