Tag Archives: Labour Behind the Label

LEARN // Educational resources to follow fashion and think through protest

 

In light of the four year anniversary of the Rana Plaza collapse (April 24th), as well as International Workers’ Day (May 1st), I thought it would be a good time to share some new educational resources related to fashion and responsibility.

Ian Cook et al. of followthething.com have launched a free online course through FutureLearn: Who Made My Clothes? The 3-week course is designed to help learners think through systems of global fashion and apparel production and consumption, and to consider new ways of engaging with global supply chains. Here is the course introduction video explaining what’s on offer:

 

In an earlier blog post I shared a few thoughts on alternative forms of protest, highlighting Sarah Corbett and the Craftivist Collective. I mentioned that the School of Gentle protest would be launching soon…and it has! The course has already gone live, but you can still follow-along and participate. There are six classes, each with short video lessons, recommended readings and weekly assignments. For more information on these, see here and here. Here’s an introduction to the course:

I think what’s most interesting (and exciting) about these two initiatives, is that they strive to get learners interested in alternative forms of engagement. While so many responsible fashion education and campaign actions focus on consumer-based (user) approaches to change, these initiatives offer the potential to move things further, leaving space for learners to think through systemic challenges related to fashion and apparel production and consumption. The result is that learners are able to curate their own activist toolkit, with or without consumer-based strategies and actions.

The Social Alterations ‘Mind Map’ is one of our key resources designed to help you dig through to the root causes and consequences of a particular issue or challenge. We’d recommend keeping this resource on hand and using it in conjunction with the Who Made My Clothes? course and The School of Gentle Protest. You’ll find that resource for free in our Lab, here.

And with our Mind Map in hand, here are some additional resources to check out:

And of course, if you haven’t already, be sure to check out all of the resources we have developed over the years. You’ll find these all available to download for free in our Learning Lab.

Happy learning everyone, hope it all leads to some creative disruption!

‘Taking Liberties’ // Garment workers in Gurgaon earn poverty wages, facing violence and threats

“Workers’ children in the area are not admitted in the Government schools in Delhi as they cannot provide the documents the Delhi Government Schools ask for.” (Worker X, Case Study: Taking Liberties)

Labour Behind the Label and War on Want are reporting gross violations of workers rights in two Delhi factories producing garments for M&S, Debenhams, Next Monsoon and Arcadia.

Taking Liberties, cites exploitative labour practices such as unregistered living in slum housing, precarious labour through non-contractual temporary employment, threats and violence against workers through hired security in anti-union workplace environment, poverty wages (workers paid less than ½ a living wage), and forced overtime.

The report is asking M&S, Debenhams, Next Monsoon and Arcadia to:

Take action! Click here to download the report have your say! Speak out against worker violations and speak up for workers rights!