Living wage
The CCC also suggested that: “marking garments as ‘fairtrade’ without paying a living wage is unacceptable and misleads consumers.”
But Fairtrade responded: “The standard will stipulate that all parties involved in the supply chain must pay living wages to their employees within six years. This makes the Fairtrade Textile Standard the first standard ever to set a time target for achieving living wages. What’s more, there must be visible improvements from the first year on, and these will be monitored during the audit. Thus the standard adopts a policy of developing over time and progress will be measured over one, three and six years.
“This realistic approach to achieving the criteria recognises that is a challenging process. Demanding that living wages should be paid immediately would result in companies becoming uncompetitive, and this in turn would result in punishing those companies who are willing to implement the standard by forcing them out of the market. Fairtrade therefore believes that it is important to give these companies reasonable time to adjust.”
Consumers transparency
Tackling the CCC assertion that a product label approach (such as Fairtrade) is problematic because it allows brands to pick and choose and to create one ‘fairtrade’ product in one supply chain while carrying on with business as usual in all other supply chains.
This is a common accusation levelled at many standards across many industry sectors, and Fairtrade responded: “The new Fairtrade Textile Production Mark and messaging guidelines are designed to be as specific and transparent as possible for consumers and other audiences.
“Transparent messaging will show the compliance level that the company or brand has achieved for its supply chain. On-product communication is only allowed when the entire supply chain is fully certified against the Fairtrade Textile Standard. The compulsory messaging is designed so that consumers are able to see if a given product was produced in a supply chain in which living wages have already been achieved, or if there is progress towards living wages.”
