at my school the last two weeks of the
year we take a course about something
we’re interested in I took a course on
fast fashion fast fashion
is making and selling clothes cheaply
these items are designed to be temporary
this is when I first discovered the
documentary the true cost that
introduced me to sweatshops but after
the documentary was over
it wasn’t my problem the next year a new
project was introduced where we had to
research something we were passionate
about I had two questions about a career
path or I could choose to research
sweatshops now I didn’t want to be
ordinary and everyone else chose to
research their career path so I decided
to research sweatshops a sweatshop is a
factory and violation of two or more
labor laws labor laws include things
like eligible working age minimum wage
and building codes like fire safety one
morning in Dhaka Bangladesh a garment
worker looked down at the floor and they
saw cracks that weren’t there before
they alerted the factory owner and they
were accused of trying to stir up
trouble and sent back to work with their
concerns ignored they were intent on
their stitching and they didn’t look up
in time to see all of the other workers
running out of the factory and thoth was
too late
this became known as the Rana Plaza
collapse they like over 1,000 others
that day didn’t make it out of that
factory alive according to NPR no one
discovered whose outsourcing from this
Factory but the last orders to be placed
are thought to have been from mango
children’s place and premier clothing
according to my research on global
exchange org I found that this would
cause many rebellions and strikes in
Bangladesh but they’re stuck in this
vicious cycle because their government
must keep their wages low in order for
Western brands to want to buy from them
if Western brands don’t buy from them
then it would result in economic crisis
here in the US we decided that low
working wages and child labor were wrong
long ago but we feed off of it from
countries and much like the US organized
government workers around the world have
sought to improve their situation by
organizing unions but union organizers
have been beaten thrown in jail and even
killed according to the true cost there
are 40 million garment factory workers
worldwide 4 million of those are located
in Bangladesh and close to 5000
factories working for Western brands
they aren’t even allowed to know the
name of 1 million of those are between
the ages of 10 and 14 alone they saw
about 1,000 clothing items per day many
for less than a dollar a day now some of
you may know this information already
but I wanted to hear what the companies
had to say about it so I emailed 10
companies and I simply asked where their
factories were located and how they kept
their costs low of those 10 companies I
only got one response and it reads hello
Claire
thank you for your email we want all of
our products to be made in a safe and
humane environment we’ve devoted
significant amounts of time money and
energy toward improving the lives of our
factory workers and factory conditions
we take this issue extremely seriously
but due to the volume of requests for
receive or unable to grant informational
interviews or respond directly to
individual requests however we’re happy
to share any information you may find
helpful thank you for your interest in
Gap Inc the one company that dared
answer my email gave me the generic
diplomatic response while others didn’t
take the time to answer at all they
couldn’t even answer a simple question
about where their factories were located
now some companies have actually made a
large effort to better the lives of
their workers Nike and H&M are among 17
companies that committed to a huge for
transparency pledge by the end of 2017
other companies have committed to
publish the names and addresses of their
supplier factories while some that have
no commitment to publish supplier
factory and for me
include mango and Walmart Nike now has a
map on their website where you can see
where each of the factories are located
and where your clothing is coming from I
again emailed hmm to ask why they
thought this Agreement was important and
what they’re doing to achieve it I got
no response I then emailed Walmart to
ask if they had any type of system in
place for people to know where their
clothing comes from again I got no
response
well companies are slowly becoming more
transparent about where their clothing
comes from very few companies identify
as fair trade fair trade means that they
provide a fair living wage to people in
third world countries they’re actually
improving the life of their workers by
giving them enough money to live their
life but the fact that not many of these
exist makes it hard for people who do
know where their clothing comes from to
know how to help when everything they
use daily is produced in a sweatshop one
way of helping is demanding sweatshop
free products where you shop if you go
to a place like Walmart and buy a dollar
item simply because it’s cheap 1 million
other people will do the same and if you
treat it as only a dollar you’re not the
only one that thinks that and his demand
goes up the company’s price must go down
this means that the workers will get
paid less and the company will cut
corners for themselves to make more
money your dollar has a lot of impact
over the course of time because you’re
not the only one treating it this way
and we can all help another way of
helping is to educate your friends if
just one or two of your friends becomes
more conscious with their money they can
help hold you accountable as well groups
largely influence how we live and if you
just get one or two people out of your
circle friends to change it’s likely
that others will change with them
because the truth is the change has to
start with us this there is no easy fix
no simple solution to this you can buy
union made us made local or suck at hand
but the most important is just to be
conscious of where you’re spending your
money
read the label and find out where
something came from before you buy it
and ask yourself if you really need it
many of us have things in every room of
our house thought we never touch or even
use but don’t just donate it because
only 10% of the clothing you donate
actually goes to local thrift stores the
rest goes back to the third-world
country it came from and they get
swamped in textiles instead you can try
trading with your friends or giving it
someone who you know will use it then
you’re not only helping yourself but
many others in the process you see when
I took this course on fast fashion two
years ago I never imagined I’d be up
here talking about it in fact I didn’t
think of the effects of what I bought
much at all the next year when I did the
project on it I thought about it and I
even felt bad for the people who
suffered from it but I still didn’t do
anything about it it was a nuisance it
was too hard but when I was practicing
my presentation for that project someone
asked me where the clothes I was wearing
that day came from they explained I
spent eight minutes talking about how
terrible these sweatshops were but I
hadn’t done anything about it other
people halfway across the world were
suffering and the least I thought I
could do for them was limit my selection
of clothing so that was the moment I
decided to buy exclusively us I made
clothes according to the Federal Trade
Commission for a product to be called
made in the US has to be all virtually
all made in the US all over Chua all
means that all significant parts and
processing of US origin and it contains
no or no negligible foreign content now
even though many young people are short
on money it holds a lot of power and
even though that it may be more
difficult to manage we can make a world
of difference to someone living in
conditions that none of us can even
imagine and even though most of us can’t
be able to can’t vote yet CEOs can hold
just as much power as senators to and
with just one dollar we can make a huge
difference we have much more power than
we realize
it is up to our generation to choose how
we vote with our dollar which company do
you want to support with your money and
with your help it is my dream that no
one will have to die for fashion again
thank you [Applause]
year we take a course about something
we’re interested in I took a course on
fast fashion fast fashion
is making and selling clothes cheaply
these items are designed to be temporary
this is when I first discovered the
documentary the true cost that
introduced me to sweatshops but after
the documentary was over
it wasn’t my problem the next year a new
project was introduced where we had to
research something we were passionate
about I had two questions about a career
path or I could choose to research
sweatshops now I didn’t want to be
ordinary and everyone else chose to
research their career path so I decided
to research sweatshops a sweatshop is a
factory and violation of two or more
labor laws labor laws include things
like eligible working age minimum wage
and building codes like fire safety one
morning in Dhaka Bangladesh a garment
worker looked down at the floor and they
saw cracks that weren’t there before
they alerted the factory owner and they
were accused of trying to stir up
trouble and sent back to work with their
concerns ignored they were intent on
their stitching and they didn’t look up
in time to see all of the other workers
running out of the factory and thoth was
too late
this became known as the Rana Plaza
collapse they like over 1,000 others
that day didn’t make it out of that
factory alive according to NPR no one
discovered whose outsourcing from this
Factory but the last orders to be placed
are thought to have been from mango
children’s place and premier clothing
according to my research on global
exchange org I found that this would
cause many rebellions and strikes in
Bangladesh but they’re stuck in this
vicious cycle because their government
must keep their wages low in order for
Western brands to want to buy from them
if Western brands don’t buy from them
then it would result in economic crisis
here in the US we decided that low
working wages and child labor were wrong
long ago but we feed off of it from
countries and much like the US organized
government workers around the world have
sought to improve their situation by
organizing unions but union organizers
have been beaten thrown in jail and even
killed according to the true cost there
are 40 million garment factory workers
worldwide 4 million of those are located
in Bangladesh and close to 5000
factories working for Western brands
they aren’t even allowed to know the
name of 1 million of those are between
the ages of 10 and 14 alone they saw
about 1,000 clothing items per day many
for less than a dollar a day now some of
you may know this information already
but I wanted to hear what the companies
had to say about it so I emailed 10
companies and I simply asked where their
factories were located and how they kept
their costs low of those 10 companies I
only got one response and it reads hello
Claire
thank you for your email we want all of
our products to be made in a safe and
humane environment we’ve devoted
significant amounts of time money and
energy toward improving the lives of our
factory workers and factory conditions
we take this issue extremely seriously
but due to the volume of requests for
receive or unable to grant informational
interviews or respond directly to
individual requests however we’re happy
to share any information you may find
helpful thank you for your interest in
Gap Inc the one company that dared
answer my email gave me the generic
diplomatic response while others didn’t
take the time to answer at all they
couldn’t even answer a simple question
about where their factories were located
now some companies have actually made a
large effort to better the lives of
their workers Nike and H&M are among 17
companies that committed to a huge for
transparency pledge by the end of 2017
other companies have committed to
publish the names and addresses of their
supplier factories while some that have
no commitment to publish supplier
factory and for me
include mango and Walmart Nike now has a
map on their website where you can see
where each of the factories are located
and where your clothing is coming from I
again emailed hmm to ask why they
thought this Agreement was important and
what they’re doing to achieve it I got
no response I then emailed Walmart to
ask if they had any type of system in
place for people to know where their
clothing comes from again I got no
response
well companies are slowly becoming more
transparent about where their clothing
comes from very few companies identify
as fair trade fair trade means that they
provide a fair living wage to people in
third world countries they’re actually
improving the life of their workers by
giving them enough money to live their
life but the fact that not many of these
exist makes it hard for people who do
know where their clothing comes from to
know how to help when everything they
use daily is produced in a sweatshop one
way of helping is demanding sweatshop
free products where you shop if you go
to a place like Walmart and buy a dollar
item simply because it’s cheap 1 million
other people will do the same and if you
treat it as only a dollar you’re not the
only one that thinks that and his demand
goes up the company’s price must go down
this means that the workers will get
paid less and the company will cut
corners for themselves to make more
money your dollar has a lot of impact
over the course of time because you’re
not the only one treating it this way
and we can all help another way of
helping is to educate your friends if
just one or two of your friends becomes
more conscious with their money they can
help hold you accountable as well groups
largely influence how we live and if you
just get one or two people out of your
circle friends to change it’s likely
that others will change with them
because the truth is the change has to
start with us this there is no easy fix
no simple solution to this you can buy
union made us made local or suck at hand
but the most important is just to be
conscious of where you’re spending your
money
read the label and find out where
something came from before you buy it
and ask yourself if you really need it
many of us have things in every room of
our house thought we never touch or even
use but don’t just donate it because
only 10% of the clothing you donate
actually goes to local thrift stores the
rest goes back to the third-world
country it came from and they get
swamped in textiles instead you can try
trading with your friends or giving it
someone who you know will use it then
you’re not only helping yourself but
many others in the process you see when
I took this course on fast fashion two
years ago I never imagined I’d be up
here talking about it in fact I didn’t
think of the effects of what I bought
much at all the next year when I did the
project on it I thought about it and I
even felt bad for the people who
suffered from it but I still didn’t do
anything about it it was a nuisance it
was too hard but when I was practicing
my presentation for that project someone
asked me where the clothes I was wearing
that day came from they explained I
spent eight minutes talking about how
terrible these sweatshops were but I
hadn’t done anything about it other
people halfway across the world were
suffering and the least I thought I
could do for them was limit my selection
of clothing so that was the moment I
decided to buy exclusively us I made
clothes according to the Federal Trade
Commission for a product to be called
made in the US has to be all virtually
all made in the US all over Chua all
means that all significant parts and
processing of US origin and it contains
no or no negligible foreign content now
even though many young people are short
on money it holds a lot of power and
even though that it may be more
difficult to manage we can make a world
of difference to someone living in
conditions that none of us can even
imagine and even though most of us can’t
be able to can’t vote yet CEOs can hold
just as much power as senators to and
with just one dollar we can make a huge
difference we have much more power than
we realize
it is up to our generation to choose how
we vote with our dollar which company do
you want to support with your money and
with your help it is my dream that no
one will have to die for fashion again
thank you [Applause]
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