BBC Panorama programme exposes LIDL "worked to death" factories

I think part of the problem is that the whole thing is so divorced from the consumer that it's not surprising that people don't really think about it.

A lot of people probably have some image in their head of the clothes being churned out by some big clothes making robot at Lidl HQ rather than being put together by very low paid workers in fairly primitive conditions in a developing country.

I think people really need to start looking at what they buy. The textile industry has a horrible history of abusing workers. When conditions eventually improved in the 20th century in Europe and North America, it seems at the first opportunity the textile industry left and went back to its 19th century approach somewhere else.

The whole supply chain is also so broken up into different bits run by different companies that nobody knows what's going on anymore. It's all subcontractors supplying companies who supply other companies who ultimately supply some retail outlet.

The electronics industry's even worse because there are so many parts to breakdown the process into. Your smartphone might be made in reasonably OK conditions in say China but you could find that many of the other components are made in less than ideal conditions and supplied up the chain.

It's at the level that you could probably not guarantee the exact provenience of almost any piece of electronic or electrical equipment.
The more high tech and complex it gets, the more likely that the high end brand is just plugging components together.

We really need to start treating consumer products and clothes more like the way we treat food. We tend to demand traceability and accountability in the food industry (at least more than other industries) and I think we should start doing the same for clothes and consumer goods.

I mean, I actually go out of my way to buy clothes made from ethically sourced organic cotton. I'm not that pushed by labels but I'm sick of paying huge prices for what is essentially a sweatshop product. You can get good clothes, at relatively reasonable prices and avoid products like this if you look around a bit harder.

I think perhaps we should be looking beyond Lidl in this too. They're not primarily a clothing retailer.
There are plenty of very expensive products being made the same way and in those cases the consumer's also being charged an enormous mark up and the product is still coming from those conditions.

The other issue is that as long as western consumers are demanding and getting products are unrealistically cheap prices, it will just continue to create abuse like this and continue to drive more and more jobs out of Europe and North America to wherever's cheapest. I mean, China's even going to start losing jobs as it develops and these guys go off to the next sweatshop destination.

Yeah but there's cheap due to efficiency vs cheap due to abuse of people.

The textile industry is mostly low tech and very manual in terms of what it does. So you end up with sweatshops.
The lower end of the electronics industry can be similar.

The thing is that in both industries with some ingenuity, the processes would be done by computer aided manufacture and automated processes.
When people are cheap they get abused.

The only reason that those conditions disappeared in the developed world was because of trade unions and legislation to protect workers rights.
It was a long struggle to get to the point we are at today.

The problem now is that there are no minimum standards as the whole thing is globalized.

Many of the same posters defending/acting-as-apologist for this crap, also seem to advocate the view that these are the third-world countries we should lower our own domestic wages to 'compete' with, and also support the destruction of unions and such that can prevent this type of abuse; hence supporting a general race-to-the-bottom in worker standards around the world (since there's no other way to compete monetarily, with the competitiveness this level of worker abuse provides - perhaps we shouldn't compete against such low standards? especially when you need other countries increasing imports, for anyone else to increase exports, which nobody is doing right now).

A lot of these posters give less of a shít about these abused workers, and far more about deferring responsibility away from the companies funding that, and the consumers also supporting/funding that; deferring responsibility so far away, that they can pretend it's an unsolvable problem we and the companies have no control over, when that's nonsense.


It's the companies responsibility to make sure their suppliers treat their workers humanely (any argument against this is simply a deferral of responsibility - it's not an impractical or unreasonable demand, it's not even expensive), and consumers have an ethical responsibility, when they become aware of a company directly or indirectly supporting abuse of workers, to properly take that into consideration and decide whether they want to do business with that company anymore.

Some people may be so strapped they have no choice though, some companies may have a completely opaque supply line or a monopoly position in the markets, so I'm not saying this is free from complicated practical issues; none of them are unresolvable though, and there is no valid reason not to work towards resolving them, with proper inspections for starters.

Breaching this ethical responsibility on the consumers part, has very little cost in terms of judgment or repercussions though (you could argue, it's the same with companies); hence nobody cares, unless the abuses are happening to workers closer to home (nobody gives a toss about people 8000+km away though, right?).

[Deleted User] wrote: »

I find it incredible that people are associating sweat shops merely with cheap clothes. The brands are at it again only probably worse. I make a point of buying cheaper clothes these times. At least the profit margin per garment wont be anything like the profit margin on a piece of clothing that Nike/Hollister etc produce and your not paying megabucks for the privelege of looking like an advertising hoarding for the same greedy company.

Yes. Ranting about cheap clothes blames the consumer. The real culprit is the profit taker.

B.A._Baracus wrote: »

I met an Indian guy on a course last year and one night he opened everyones eyes to the whole sweatshop thing.

It's catch 22 - On one hand people are being exploited and all too often are working in sub-par conditions. On the other hand is that without the sweat shops these people would literally have nothing. He also said sweatshop jobs are highly sought after in many areas as the pay is considered good. Let alone the aspect of having a job.

It's a very messed up situaution to what side you come down on.

Even the BBC report said the majority of factories were new and modern. Western companies and governments need to enforce standards and Bangladesh needs to arrest the owners of the bad factories.