Primark - a web of sleeze!

[Staunton]

I was just wondering if you could inform me how you shop ethically in order to avoid exploiting workers in poorer countries.

No matter how you try when shopping the information is not always at hand in regards to country of origin, building regs, minimum wage,workers hours, minimum age etc.

Having seen the amount of shoppers in Primark and other exploitative global companies I really don't think anyone gives a toss!

 

That is an excellent question and well asked. Thank you monkey104, and it is one that is hard to answer. Like you, I try my best, but there is so much that we don't know, and so much that the multinationals try to hide from us.

 

I not sure that those who shop in Primark don't give a toss, it's just that these issues are complex, and most people are too busy or find the mixed message from our cynical media too powerful to decypher.

 

Do what you can, and try to inform folk of what is happening whenever a horror such as that unfolding in Dhaka occurs - it is often at these moments that those behind the suffering are exposed..

[I1L2T3]

I was just wondering if you could inform me how you shop ethically in order to avoid exploiting workers in poorer countries.

No matter how you try when shopping the information is not always at hand in regards to country of origin, building regs, minimum wage,workers hours, minimum age etc.

Having seen the amount of shoppers in Primark and other exploitative global companies I really don't think anyone gives a toss!

 

Primark and other shops like it play on human nature. Everyone loves a bargain right?

 

If you go in the shop it gives the appearance of being a low end operation, almost amateurish in a way. It's far from that as we know. It's a slick corporate operation that is based on achieving small margins per product sold but selling at massive volumes. Corporate power is leveraged to drive buying prices into the floor.

 

Are Primark any better than Apple? Maybe Apple has safer factories but we all know about the problems at Foxconn for example. Final assembly and packaging cost of a £400 iPad is under £10.

 

The problem consumers face is that take just about any product and the only choice is to buy something made in the far east. It's impossible to shop totally ethically any more

[tinfoilhat]

Primark and other shops like it play on human nature. Everyone loves a bargain right?

 

If you go in the shop it gives the appearance of being a low end operation, almost amateurish in a way. It's far from that as we know. It's a slick corporate operation that is based on achieving small margins per product sold but selling at massive volumes. Corporate power is leveraged to drive buying prices into the floor.

 

Are Primark any better than Apple? Maybe Apple has safer factories but we all know about the problems at Foxconn for example. Final assembly and packaging cost of a £400 iPad is under £10.

 

The problem consumers face is that take just about any product and the only choice is to buy something made in the far east. It's impossible to shop totally ethically any more

 

By a paramo jacket, assembled by "at risk women" in Columbia. Yours for £200 (for a posh cagule). It's doable but it's hard work and very expensive. You could make your own but a ball of wool can be a fiver plus.

[Staunton]

By a paramo jacket, assembled by "at risk women" in Columbia. Yours for £200 (for a posh cagule). It's doable but it's hard work and very expensive. You could make your own but a ball of wool can be a fiver plus.

 

The free market operators and their supporters would say that people in Bangladesh, Columbia, Pakistan and any othet of the struggling nations of the Global South need income. And they would be right. And enterprise here in the UK needs to be vibrant and profitable too!

 

I think the essential point is that corporations are not interested in fair business or social justice, and are adept at avoiding regulation and preventing impoverished states from developing or enforcing legislation. If we are ever going to see change, our focus must be on holding big business accountable, demanding tax justice across the globe, and exposing the link between the corporate sector and the political parties.

 

The implication of the points being made in this thread - that we cannot cannot avoid products manufactured or assembled by exploited labour is a plain fact, unless we wish to do without TVs, mobiles, lap-tops, electronic goods of any kind, and go without clothes, shoes...

 

So it seems to me that awareness is the first step, followed by a new politics that favours all people rather than enhancing the already swollen bank accounts of the super rich..

 

I want to see enterprise rewarded, I wish to see successful entrepreneurs, but I also want an end to exploitation, poverty and business structures designed to avoid tax.

[I1L2T3]

There's nothing fundamentally wrong with using lower wage economies for manufacturing. It makes sense in business terms and can be a powerful force for positive change.

 

It's about getting the balance right between dangerous exploitation and genuine economic development. Putting 3,000 people to work in a lethally unsafe building is dangerous exploitation.

 

Companies like Primark need a better operation on the ground to help prevent it. Primark prices care so low anyway a few extra pence on each item to fund it would hardly be noticed.