Shopper discovers ‘hidden message’ stitched on to Primark dress

Capt'n Midnight

Seaneh wrote: »

In a factory of a few hundred people pumping out thousands of pieces every day there might be a random quality check of 1 garment per hundred, at the very most. They don't check every piece that goes through the shop floor.

Let's pretend for a moment that you are the worker in a sweatshop.

What do you think would happen to your job prospects if the message was found ?

Now do you think that anyone working there would actually try that ??


If the extra label had been underneath, then possibly, but on top ???

Primark was one of the main businesses in the Rana Plaza building in Bangladesh. The day after cracks appeared all over the building, garment workers were ordered to work.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2013_Savar_building_collapse

Over 1120 people were killed and thousands injured.
I'll never give Primark any business.

bnt

I've heard the garment industry described as an industry that follows poverty. It's fairly low-tech, so it isn't reliant on an educated workforce. In the example in the article, Columbia lost major Jockey contracts because they were "too expensive". These days, Bangledesh is the cheapest.

I've made a point of looking for the country of origin, and on all my recent Penneys purchases, the label has no country on it. So I assume Bangladesh unless otherwise specified.

B.A._Baracus

I did a course with an Indian lad two years ago. Customer related course shite. But sweatshops in India got mentioned. He opened my eyes to be honest.

It's a catch 22 situation. These sweatshops are in very poor parts. So on one hand they work the balls of the people which is not right. On the other hand, there are no jobs in these areas and the wages are seen as very good. Because people have nothing. There's no social welfare.... there's hardly jobs... there is nothing but poverty.

It's a weird weird situation. If you close the sweatshops you are making people starve. If you bring in health and safety most corporations will feck off to another country and set up factories there.

JONJO THE MISER

Sure didnt all the people working when bill cullen was growing up work like this and you didnt see them complaining.

Duckworth_Luas

Luckily the dress with that label found its way into a store in an English speaking market. Would have been a waste if it had ended up on a rack in Austria or Germany.

stefan idiot jones

Wishiwasa Littlebitaller wrote: »

Most likely put there by bored staff who then hope the note is discovered in one of the fitting rooms so they can then get a good laugh at it being discovered. Guess the all got bored supergluing Euro coins to the footpath.

Dear Sir, In the United Kingdom the currency is Sterling. Wales is in the UK, Swansea is in Wales, Primark is in St Marys Square opposite St Marys church where the local alcoholics like to frequent with their three litre bottles of White Lightning which were probably bought in Tescos which is four hundred yards away for three pounds fifty sterling.

Tail Docker

stefan idiot jones wrote: »

Dear Sir, In the United Kingdom the currency is Sterling. Wales is in the UK, Swansea is in Wales, Primark is in St Marys Square opposite St Marys church where the local alcoholics like to frequent with their three litre bottles of White Lightning which were probably bought in Tescos which is four hundred yards away for three pounds fifty sterling.

They go down to the bureau de change and get euros to glue to the footpath, it's cheaper than glueing a pound coin. They are very aware of the sterling difference.

mickydoomsux

So this is this weeks Twitter slacktavism thing.

Give it a couple of days and we'll forget about it and move on to the next thing to get pretend-upset about.

#KONY2012
#MichelleObamaholdingupbitsofpaper
#saveourgirls
#firstworldguilt
#insencerity

CarrickMcJoe

She should be put on a Jobsbridge scheme, then she'll know the meaning of slave labour.

Capt'n Midnight

Capt'n Midnight wrote: »

Let's pretend for a moment that you are the worker in a sweatshop.

What do you think would happen to your job prospects if the message was found ?

Now do you think that anyone working there would actually try that ??


If the extra label had been underneath, then possibly, but on top ???

The label was added ( most likely in the shop ) by some activist I thought that much was obvious. Look at the publicity it has generated.

Davarus Walrus

mickydoomsux wrote: »

#insencerity

That's the most relevant one I think. Most of this faux online outrage these days is just so obviously insincere. It's posting a couple of glib 'right on' sentences in between checking facebook and playing candy crush. It’s like a game of who can be the most 'self-righteous' and 'common-sense liberal'. While looking for self-reaffirmation and not actually doing anything about the things you pretend to care deeply about. Even at a micro level.

FTA69

urabell wrote: »

People in Ireland worked in sweatshops until not so long ago, as these countries pull their socks up and slowly fall over the line into the 21st century things will change for them as well. Time is the only cure, not microactivism.

This is nonsense.

Change is not an organic process that happens down to the passage of time alone, it occurs because people make change happen. You are correct that conditions in the West were similar for many years but the only reason they changed is down to the collective struggle of working people over the past 150 years. Things like sick pay, holiday pay, minimum wage, equal pay for women, 8 hour day and an end to child labour were all won on the back of trade union organisation and a long process of agitating for change. They were also opposed tooth and nail by the employers who sought to maximise profit at the expense of the wellbeing of those who worked for them.

What is happening in Bangladesh at the moment is being opposed by a few hard-working trade unionists and other activists who are trying to end the culture of near slavery. These are people we should be supporting because without them, no change will occur in Bangladesh or countries like it.

ElizaT33

I suspect "Candie" sewed on the extra label:D

Gyalist

bnt wrote: »

I've heard the garment industry described as an industry that follows poverty. It's fairly low-tech, so it isn't reliant on an educated workforce. In the example in the article, Columbia lost major Jockey contracts because they were "too expensive". These days, Bangledesh is the cheapest.

I've made a point of looking for the country of origin, and on all my recent Penneys purchases, the label has no country on it. So I assume Bangladesh unless otherwise specified.

There was the more local example of Fruit of the Loom closing their operations in Buncrana and moving them to Morocco despite the inducements offered to them by the Irish government.

RustDaz

This just reminded me of something similar that i found when i worked in the store room of a dunnes stores years ago. I was emptying clothes from boxes and i found a piece of cardboard about the size of a postcard in the box. It had chinese handwriting on both sides and they crammed in as much writing as possible. I put it away to bring it home but some busy body threw it out. I remember that there was an address alright in english on it. Bothers me thinking about it, who knows what the message contained.

AudreyHepburn

Hidden message my eye! The world and it's mother knows where our clothes come from.

Anyone who believes that the clothes we wear are all produced fairly and with the best interests of the people who make them in mind must be living under a rock.

steddyeddy

urabell wrote: »

Anybody who does probably isn't working in a sweatshop.



The UN might just be the single most ineffective body on the planet.

That's not true about English being a ticket out of slavery.

Tombo2001

Candie wrote: »

No one should be surprised, if they buy a 10 euro garment that has been assembled in a country thousands of miles away, packaged and shipped to Europe, unpacked, stacked on a shelf by someone else and the payment taken by someone else on a till, that somewhere along the way in the production of this disposable fashion, someone vulnerable and desperate for money has had their labour exploited so that they can buy a cheap dress and throw it away after a few washes.

I don't shop in Primark.

No one is surprised, but perhaps the surprising thing is that no-one even cares.

steddyeddy

The English thing doesn't bother me but chances are it was stitched on. Who cares who did it. The message wasn't inaccurate these people need help.

Tombo2001

Tombo2001 wrote: »

No one is surprised, but perhaps the surprising thing is that no-one even cares.

Some care.
But more people care about getting cheap clothes than cheapening lives.

Capt'n Midnight

B.A._Baracus wrote: »

It's a weird weird situation. If you close the sweatshops you are making people starve. If you bring in health and safety most corporations will feck off to another country and set up factories there.

One option would be for the EU to insist on working time directive or similar for goods imported here.

There are already limits imposed on abattoir workers in the USA when processing exports for the EU

JONJO THE MISER

Maybe these people should stop having so many children when they are so poor, often they will have 8 to 10 kids and no ways of feeding them all.
They need to wake up and stop expecting the western world to care about them when they could do something about it themselves.

Nodin

JONJO THE MISER wrote: »

Maybe these people should stop having so many children when they are so poor, often they will have 8 to 10 kids and no ways of feeding them all.
They need to wake up and stop expecting the western world to care about them when they could do something about it themselves.

...one of them ones its hard to know where to start with....

Nodin

Nodin wrote: »

...one of them ones its hard to know where to start with....

Not one single clue in that one, not even a hint.

Tail Docker

Candie wrote: »

Not one single clue in that one, not even a hint.

Which bit? Also, elucidate on the ownership of these "sweatshops"? Are they owned by Westerners or owned by Local Businesspeople? So, who exactly is exploiting who?

If it is local owners paying crappy wages and selling clothes really, really cheap...maybe they need to break the cycle by upping their prices..and their wages..not that that is going to happen, because I'll think you'll find that the owners do pretty damn nicely, while still paying crap wages.

They could easily pay living wages, but they don't. That's their greed, not our exploitation.

Nodin

Tail Docker wrote: »

Which bit? .

All of it.

CrazyRabbit

The current global economic system do not work unless there are poor countries/people to exploit.

All we can do is try not to be one of those countries.

Atlantic Dawn

CrazyRabbit wrote: »

The current global economic system do not work unless there are poor countries/people to exploit.

All we can do is try not to be one of those countries.

Exactly or idiots with oil to sell arms to that they can wipe their own people out with.

Another note surfaces..

http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-northern-ireland-28018137
A shopper has claimed she found a "cry for help" note hidden inside a pair of trousers alleging slave labour conditions in a Chinese prison.

The note, wrapped in a prison identity card, claimed inmates were forced to work 15 hours a day making clothes.

Karen Wisínska said she bought the trousers in Primark's Belfast store in June 2011 but had never worn them. She discovered the note just last week.


....

The note, translated into English, reads: "SOS! SOS! SOS! We are prisoners at a prison in Xiang Nan, Hunan, People's Republic of China.

"For a long time, we have been producing clothing for export. We work for 15 hours each day. What we eat is even worse than food for pigs and dogs. The work we do is similar to (the hard work) that oxen and horses do.