Penelope Cruz’s contribution to unfair trade
Posted: August 31, 2011 Filed under: NGO studies | Tags: celebreties, Charles Vögele, fair trade, Penelope Cruz, unfair trade 2 Comments »Various scholars have analyzed celebreties’ involvement in ‘fair trade’ (Goodman or Richey & Ponte). Has anyone looked at how celebreties contribute to “unfair trade”? Let’s do it. Recently, Penelope Cruz (PC) pops up all over Zurich again on ads for the Swiss company Charles Voegele (CV).
Charles Voegele (626 Million CHF turnover & 62 Mill losses in the first half year 2011) sells rather cheap, low quality clothing for relatively low prices (but the PC campaign is for higher segment clothes). The Swiss NGO Declaration of Berne and the Asian Floor Wage Campaign recently criticized CV for not committing to pay living wages (to my information CV also only employs less than one person to improve working conditions, which is too little to really change things):
In this situation, does Penelope Cruz contribute to poor working conditions (i.e. unfair trade)?
According to the dead American political philosopher, Iris Young, poor working conditions are the mediated result of complex structures, into which different actors are embedded and to which they all contribute. She claims that no one is singularly responsible for poor working conditions (no company, no supplier, no consumer and also not PC), but all share a forward-looking responsibility to better working conditions. She suggests that power, privilege, interest and collective ability define what responsibility single actors share to make the things better and argues that we should discharge our responsibility through collective action.
In the Cruz case, the actor does not need to collectively engage, it simply seems sufficient, if she does not support a company that seems to support unfair practices: She certainly does not need the few millions she earns with the ads; she has the power and privilege to say no to advertise for a company that does not support high wages (she could select a fair trade company). She might not have the collective abillity to change the situation, but she can choose not to contribute (last year her whole family travelled to Switzerland and was the star at a CV event and not she is an ‘ambassardor’ and certainly leads women to buying at CV). I would thus argue that Cruz has the shared responsibility not to advertise for a company that is criticized for doing little to prevent poor working conditions. Simply: PC is not PC.
Please not that this is nothing personal against PC – on the contrary, I Almodovar’s movies in which she plays belong to my favourite ones.
Been There! Done It! Not sure I’ve earned the t-shirt!
Posted: August 18, 2011 Filed under: Book, Clip | Tags: Been There, Done It, Lucy Siegle, Northumbria School of Design, sweatshop conditions, Working Conditions Leave a comment »I am just reading Lucy Siegle’s “To die for”. On page 43 she explains ‘sweatshop’ working conditions. She reports about the ‘virtual factory standard’, which allows workers to take 15 Minutes for a pair of five-pocket jeans. To explain what that means, she refers to an interesting experiment of the Northumbria School of Design.
A team of 60 first year students set up a typical production line of a factory for producing T-shirts. While the standard factory allows the workers 48,5 seconds for sewing each sideseam, the students were allowed 1 min 55 sec ….
After 7,5 hours the students produced 95 T-Shirts. The daily target in a factory in Bangladesh with the same line load is 900.
Siegle writes: “… these guinea pigs aren’t exposed to conditions that can include being punched in the face for attending meetings, having their documents and permits taken from them, being denied access to a foetid toilet unteil their bladders are about to burst, being sexually assaulted or forced to have abortions…“
HERE you find the video they produced.
BBC 3 produced a similar idea “Blood, Sweat and T-shirts“
How to morally justify that brands are responsible for working conditions in their supply chains?
Posted: August 5, 2011 Filed under: Academic paper | Tags: moral justification, working standards Leave a comment »Here you find Dänzer’s article “A Moral Argument gorunding brands’ responsibility for Working Conditions in their Supply Chains” that I commented. Please do not cite this article, as it is a draft version. The final version will soon be published in tbe journal “Analyse und Kritik” 2011.
Please comment: Article on “CSR and complexity”
Posted: August 5, 2011 Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: Adidas, Corporate responsibility, moral justification, working standards 2 Comments »What how can Adidas’ responsibility for working conditions in their supply chain be morally justified?
I am writing a comment for the Swiss Philosophical Joural “Analyse und Kritik” on an article by Sonja Dänzer “A Moral Argument grounding Multinational Companies’ Responsibility for Working Conditions in their Supply Chains” . Both articles will be published soon. Dänzer develops a moral justification that MNEs are responsible for working conditions in their supply chains. In my comment on the article, I argue that attributing responsibility might be more complex. You should be able to understand my article without reading Dänzers’ article.
I very much welcome feedback and critique on my article: “Corporate responsibility in global production networks and complexity” to followethicalfashion (at) gmail.
