Introduction
The United States and the world understand that the Declaration of the Emancipation of 1863 ended slavery, at least on paper. The comprehension may be true considering that the Emancipation illegalized institutionalized slavery. Nonetheless, a new form of slavery, what most researchers prefer to call modern slavery, has emerged nearly more than 150 years since President Lincoln’s historic declaration of the freedom from enslavement. The capitalistic principles of the world then, as they do now, necessitated the possession of the means of production, and cheap labor from slaves provided the best opportunity to keep costs as low as possible while maximizing profits.
Capitalism continues dominating the global economy—it faces little competition from other theories of economics—and it necessitates the perpetuation of slavery in which some players in the global economy, especially the G20 nations, legitimize products and services produced under slave-like conditions through injecting them into the supply chain of multinational corporation across different sectors of the economy. The implication that one should get from these statements is that slaves could have built the houses in which the rich live, manufactured the cars they drive, grown the food they eat, and made the clothes they wear among others. With this picture in mind, the present paper explores the idea of modern slavery in the lens of the global fashion industry. The author articulates the case of modern slavery in the apparel industry of the globe using the case study of an article, A Poor Country Clothing the Rich Countries: Case of Garment Trade in Bangladesh , published in the Economy of Region Journal in 2016. Notably, the paper finds that multinational fashion companies exploit workers in the developing economies for ready-made garments to feed their fast fashion industries.
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Case Study of Mahboob and Anita (2016) Article
Modern slavery in the apparel industry of the world is manifested in forced labor. It is important to understand the meaning of forced labor, and the International Labor Organization (ILO) provides a meaningful definition by asserting, “… all work or service which is exacted from any person under the threat of a penalty and for which the person has not offered himself or herself voluntarily,” (ILO, 2020). The definition sets ground for understanding the state of modern day slavery in the fashion industry, especially through the context of Bangladesh, which the Mahboob and Anita (2016) cover in their article. While the workers in the Bangladesh ready-made garment industry works for a pay, one must note that they are mostly exploited to meet the production deadlines that would satisfy the needs of European and Asian markets, including the United States and other powerful economies of the world. Precisely, the article notes that most of the workers are forced to work long extra hours on the factories against their wish because the factory owners are motivated to draw the profits of trading with international fashion brands.
According to Mahboob and Anita (2016), the Bangladeshi economy is characterized by widespread unemployment, which means that most of the people in the country would rather work in low-paying jobs that stay jobless. Considerably, more poor women than men work in the nation’s ready-made garment industry where they are paid lowly—as much as 50% below the minimum wage bill for most states in the United States. Mahboob and Anita assert, “…men and women from the poor slum areas worked for over nine hours of paid work, and that single women worked for longer hours than men and married women.” (p. 1179). The cited passage is import in constructing and understanding of the issues of modern slavery in the fashion sector of the globe in two perspectives. The obvious one concerns forced labor—the issue of forced over-time—while the second one concerns gender discrimination, which is one of the characteristics of classical slavery in America and the rest of the world. However, this analysis shall re-visit the issue of gender discrimination deeper into the document because of the need to adequately explore the problem of forced labor.
The ILO may not have captured the conditions of working in its definition of forced labor, but in a modernist perspective, one may argue that forced labor entails requiring workers to handle tasks in unfavorable and unsupportive environments. The latter idea widens the scope of slavery in the modern-day cloth and apparel industry of the world, especially when one realizes that Mahboob and Anita (2016) highlight the fact that the many workers (more than 4 million) working in the Bangladeshi ready-made garment industry work in difficult conditions. The article uses the case study of the Rana factory in Dhaka, the capital of Bangladeshi, which the authors argue that it had not been constructed to meet the set standards of safety for the thousands of workers that it houses. The authors cite the fact that the Garment Manufacturing Association of Bangladesh argued that the poor construction standards of the factory were to be blamed for the deaths of employees between 1997 and 2015 (Mahboob & Anita, 2016). One of the most notable catastrophes was the 2013 incidence in which the building collapsed killing 1100 persons and injuring more than 2500 others, the study reports.
The incidence in the previous paragraph is an exemplification of the ill-treatment that workers in the global fashion supply chain are subjected, and it may be understood better in the sense that the workers are allowed little access to social welfare programs, which extends the element of forced labor. Usually, slaves in the classical ages were separated from their families and bundled into workgroups that would then be assigned to specific tasks (Holsey, 2016). The slaves of the past era were not allowed time off either, which modern slavery reconstructs in a more subtle form. In Bangladesh, the millions of workers (Mahboob and Anita report the existence of over four million of them) work without holiday, childcare, canteen, and leave, which repaints an image of slavery. The employees are not allowed to unionize, which eliminates any chances that they would voice their grievances to their employers and the government. Furthermore, according to the article, none of the employers in the industry has ventured to secure healthcare insurance for its employees, which means that the social welfare of the workers is not an issue on the minds of the employers in the industry, and anyone can see why these conditions reconstruct the images of classical slavery in America.
Gender discrimination is also rampant in the global apparel industry, and it is a representation of slavery. It has been mentioned previous that women and men in Bangladesh are treated differently—women undergo more torture than do the women. In classical slavery, men were tortured more than women were because the former group labored on the fields while the latter mostly attended to domestic chores. Nonetheless, the incidences in respect to the fact that both genders experienced mixed treatments in early slavery, one cannot establish a real difference because most of the women in the modern era are still subjected to sexual harassment and violence. The situation in Bangladesh is no different, especially when Mahboob and Anita report that single women are harassed more than the married one. While it is not apparent why the married women are treated better (at least when one considers the preferential treatment that receive relative to the single ones), the incidence reconstructs the images of classical slavery, which was built around the institution of discriminative treatment of people, especially based on gender.
Capitalism and slavery have close relationships. In this system of the economy, people strive to control the means of production because they want to maximize their profits. Labor remains one of the most important factors of production now as it was in the past. Usually companies strive to exploit the supply chain for cost minimization opportunities, and cheap labor presents the greatest opportunity. The article notes that employees in the Bangladeshi ready-made garments industry are lowly paid (Mahboob and Anita, 2016). The widespread poverty of the country, as it is in the rest of the emerging economies, makes the employees vulnerable to exploitative plots of the employers who are motivated to control the means of production in the Marxist fashion. Classical slaves did not get wages, yet the modern situation does not make a significant difference considering that underpayment may as well be interpreted as modern slavery, especially when one factors in the issues of growing costs of living that continue dominating economic debates around the globe.
The discourse on slavery cannot be complete without the critical mention of the fact that the ready-made Bangladeshi garments serve the fast fashion industry of the developed world. The article mentions the effects of European, American, and Australian companies on the garment industry of Bangladesh (Mahboob and Anita, 2016). A review of the extant studies affirms this argument, especially because it mentions the involvement of the G20 economies in the perpetuation of modern slavery across different sectors, including the fashion industry. The biggest fashion brands, including H&M (it is mentioned in several articles for mistreating employees, such as Hodal (2018)) used the garments from the poorest nations around the world, including Bangladesh to legitimize the products made under slave-like conditions by injecting them into their supply chain systems. Of course, capitalism necessitates that traders make profits by charging higher premiums than their costs of production, and the fashion companies of America and the world have mastered this art.
Constructing the meaning of modern slavery is challenging, especially when it is understood that it happens subtly. For example, the richest people and economies of the world may not be aware of the fact that most of the products and services, or at least some, are produced under slave-like conditions. However, the reality remains that the most expensive clothes, vehicles, houses, and other products and services are created using the input of people from the low socioeconomic bracket. Therefore, understanding the realities of modern slavery requires considering the price differences between the cost of material and the finished products in the developed market systems of American and elsewhere. Mahboob and Anita capture this discrepancy in their article, noting that the cheap ready-made garments end up in the hands of the most respected fashion companies of the world that charge expensive prices and make high profits without realizing the fact that they originated from slave-like conditions mostly in the third world nations. Maybe, as Turker and Altuntas (2014) argue, the companies can be excuses because they do not control their supply chain systems because materials required in the manufacture of clothes and apparel come from different parts of the world. Again, the latter scenario sheds light into the complexity of modern slavery; it is very subtly implied.
An Analysis of the Events and What Could be done to Change the Situation
The analysis reports that the fashion industry subtly perpetuates modern slavery. As reported, most of the giant fashion companies of the developed world are not aware that they use raw material that has been sourced from the emerging economies where they have been produced under slave-like conditions. The central problem in the analysis, however, is the fact that the companies do not control their supply chain systems. Usually, they buy the garments from importers, especially because as Turker and Altuntas (2014) argue, the fashion industry has one of the most complicated supply chain systems around the world. Therefore, modern slavery happens because companies, such as H&M do not have proper control and management of their supply chain systems. Unless cases emerge in which the companies are involved in the direct purchase of their raw materials from the cheap sources, it is not easy to pinpoint any one of them for promoting slavery in the present world. Therefore, the case of modern slavery in the supply chain system of the fashion industry of the world raises the issue of ethical supply chain management, which must be handled to combat the subtle slavery in the sector.
While the fashion companies in America may not be sourcing their raw material directly from the producers, they are aware of their origins. Consequently, the firms have an ethical responsibility of avoiding the exploitation of people on the lower ends of their supply chain systems. One of the best ways of dealing with the problem would be to institute corporate social responsibility (CSR) strategies. CSR is a common strategy in the corporate world, which aims to ensure that while companies explore their profit objectives, they do alongside the desire to improve the communities in which they operate (León & Juan, 2014). Some of the organizations may not resist obtaining their raw material from their current suppliers because of their importance and relative qualities. However, the companies can play an active role in stopping the exploitation of masses in the lower end of their supply chains through funding charities and other projects that enhance the social wellbeing of employees in places, such as Bangladesh (León & Juan, 2014). To ensure the efficiency of the CSR strategy, the leading fashion brands of the world may collaborate in working towards the promotion of the rights and wellbeing of the employees and all participants in their supply chain systems.
Conclusion
The world may be aware of the fact that slavery was abolished more than a century and a half ago, but most people may not imagine its existence in the modern world. As this essay has articulated, capitalism is to blame for the vices that occur in the field of human resources management. Specifically, using the case study of Bangladesh, this paper has argued that the biggest companies in the fashion industry that mostly come from the G20 countries are to blame for the promotion of slavery and slave-like conditions in the third world countries where the production and initial processing of the raw material for their firms happens. Precisely, capitalism has created an industry in which the most renowned companies in the industry do not have a direct control of their supply chains, which means that the stakeholders in the lower ends of their supply chain systems are always exploited for profit, which is a form of subtle slavery. Therefore, the author has recommended a combined approach to corporate social responsibility by the major fashion companies to help intervene the social welfare problems of those in the lower end of the fashion supply chain, such as the ready-made garment workers in Bangladesh.
References
Hodal, K. (2018). Abuse is daily reality for female garment workers for Gap and H&M, says report. Retrieved from https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2018/jun/05/female-garment-workers-gap-hm-south-asia
Holsey, B. (2016). Transatlantic dreaming: slavery, tourism, and diasporic encounters. Homecomings: Unsettling paths of return , 166-182.
León, R., & Juan, A. A. (2014). Promoting corporate social responsibility in logistics throughout horizontal cooperation. Managing Global Transitions , 12 (1), 79-93.
Mahboob, A. M., & Anita, M. (2016). A poor country clothing the rich countries: case of garment trade in Bangladesh. Экономика региона , 12 (4).1178—1193
The Intenational Labor Organization (ILO) (2020). What is forced labour, modern slavery and human trafficking. Retrieved from https://www.ilo.org/global/topics/forced-labour/definition/lang--en/index.htm
Turker, D., & Altuntas, C. (2014). Sustainable supply chain management in the fast fashion industry: An analysis of corporate reports. European Management Journal , 32 (5), 837-849.
