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sustaInaBlE FashIon : a handBooK For Educators
role cards
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Factory workers
You live in Bangladesh. You are 18 years old; you’ve worked since you were 8 years old. You work a dozen or so hours a
day, one-third of it constituting compulsory overtime, not always paid. You work all these hours so you can survive on your
salary, which is below the legal minimum at around 15 € per month. From this money you have to pay rent for one room
in a tin house where you live with your family, which you support. In your region there is no other work and each day new
people from surrounding or distant villages arrive looking for work. When there are too many workers in the factory you
are fired and then you have to work from home, for lower wages. Last year workers who tried to establish a trade union
to fight for better working conditions and higher salaries were fired. Since that time, nobody has tried to fight for better
conditions. From time to time inspectors (auditors) come to check what the working conditions are like. The factory
owner tells you what questions the inspectors will ask and the answers you should give.
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Factory owner
You employ people from the local area in Bangladesh. You are the main employer in your town, but there is still great
competition between other factory owners in the region. As your main advantage is a cheap workforce, you try
everything you can to keep wages low, overtime high and workers on short-term contracts so that you don’t have to pay
them when there is no work. Your prices are also low because you circumvent rules relating to environmental protection.
The government turns a blind eye because foreign investment is one of the main sources of income for the country. The
inspectors (auditors) sent by the brands and retailers to check on working conditions rarely, if ever, get in touch with your
workers. You keep two types of documentation (authentic and fake) about working hours and pay so that you don’t have
problems from the inspectors. To be competitive (the buyers are always asking for lower prices and faster production),
you can’t pay the workers higher wages or reduce their hours so you need to cover up what you actually pay. You’re not
threatened by trade unions because you have established your own trade union which you control (yellow trade union)
and which supports your company’s actions.
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International clothing company
Every year you try to gain a larger market share, but consumers are more and more demanding, wanting to buy good
quality clothes at cheaper prices. You have marketing specialists working for your brand, but the price is the factor that
attracts consumers’ attention, especially discounted products, which also need to make a profit to satisfy investors. The
most profitable way forward is to move production to a poorer country with fewer employment regulations, where
governments are willing to give tax concessions and don’t seem concerned about the environment or working conditions
in factories so they can remain in power. Generally, you don’t care about the working conditions in factories.
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consumers
You live in a city of average size. You are a student and you have a Saturday job. What do you care about? What is
important to you when shopping for clothes?