Labour Issues

How can retailers sell a t-shirt for $3.75?

In the highly-labour intensive garment industry, every garment you have ever worn has been stitched by another human being, sitting at a sewing machine rather like the workers in the image above. These workers often work long hours for very little pay.

In Australia, we are accustomed to cheap clothing. This has brought benefits for Australians in allowing people of all income levels to be clothed well.

However, how much was the garment worker paid? What working conditions do they experience for us to be clothed so cheaply?

In Week 2, we first discussed ideas of globalisation and global value chains. This module continues this topic, paying attention to the labour issues faced by workers throughout the textile and garment industries around the world.

The issues we will focus on disproportionately affect workers in tiers 1, 2 and 3 of the supply chain.

In the module we will cover the following topics:

• Historical labour issues in the fashion industry

• Globalisation and the garment industry

• Labour Abuses

• Corporate Social Responsibility

• Ethical Fashion

• The impact of Covid-19 on garment workers.