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Who is to blame?: A re-examination of fast fashion after the 2013 factory
disaster in Bangladesh
Article in Critical Perspectives on International Business · February 2014
DOI: 10.1108/cpoib-09-2013-0035
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CPOIB
10,1/2
Who is to blame?
A re-examination of fast fashion after the 2013
factory disaster in Bangladesh
72
Ian M. Taplin
Department of Sociology & International Studies, Wake Forest University,
Winston-Salem, North Carolina, USA and Kedge Business School,
Bordeaux, France
Abstract
Purpose – This paper seeks to examine the various actors responsible for the recent tragedy at a
clothing factory in Bangladesh. Rather than focusing on the actual factory owner, it evaluates the
broader structural and institutional factors, plus a particular Western retailer strategy of fast fashion,
that together explain the practical inevitability of such tragedies.
Design/methodology/approach – As a case study of a particular incident, it presents data from
newspaper accounts and descriptive statistics to evaluate the broader context of an industrial accident.
Findings – By examining the full context of the incident, it becomes apparent that there were systemic
issues that effectively encouraged many parties to engage in workplace policies that almost inevitably
can lead to accidents or at least labor abuses. Finally, blame is apportioned to Western consumers whose
insatiable appetite for “fashionable” goods merely feeds a retail system that was set up to resolve earlier
supply chain problems and ended up taking advantage of changing international trade regimes.
Originality/value – The paper takes a much broader examination and analysis of institutional
factors that shape work conditions than studies that focus merely on labor-management issues.
Keywords Supply chains, Fast fashion, Employment conditions, Workplace accidents
Paper type Viewpoint
critical perspectives on international
business
Vol. 10 No. 1/2, 2014
pp. 72-83
q Emerald Group Publishing Limited
1742-2043
DOI 10.1108/cpoib-09-2013-0035
On April 24, 2013, an eight-story complex of clothing factories called Rana Plaza, near
Dhaka, Bangladesh, collapsed. The initial death toll in the days after the disaster was
estimated to be at least 400. In the weeks that followed, as the site was gradually
cleared and the dead and injured were pulled from the building, it was obvious that the
numbers killed would be much, much higher. The final toll was 1,127 people killed,
mainly young women (Bradsher, 2013).
In the previous decade, 800 more people have died in factories in Bangladesh,
mainly through fires; 100 in the past year prior to the latest accident (Al-Mahmoud,
2013). Less than a month after the Rana Plaza accident, three people died and six were
injured when a floor piled with material collapsed in a sneaker factory in Cambodia
(O’Keefe and Narin, 2013). Although less serious than the Bangladesh disaster, it
nonetheless illustrates the dangerous nature of work in Asian garment factories.
Apparel workers faced similar hazards in Western countries over 100 years ago when
manufacturing in that sector was in a similar growth mode. The collapse of Pemberton
mill in Massachusetts in 1860, followed by the infamous March 11, 1911 Triangle
Shirtwaist factory fire in New York that killed 146 workers are just two of the better
known and deadly examples. In the latter case the workers were locked inside –
indicative of the level of abuse towards and distrust of workers by factory owners, in
this instance associated with organizing drives by the International Ladies Garment
Workers Union (ILGWU) (Esbenshade, 2004).
In the last decade, both Cambodia and Bangladesh embraced garment assembly as
a form of export-led growth, relying on their large population of low waged workers
and the fact that wages were rising in China (Siddiqi, 2004). In Bangladesh, it is a $20
billion-a-year industry and the country is now the second largest garment exporter
after China (Bradsher, 2013); in Cambodia, it accounts for the largest value of exports
($4 billion), the majority of which go to Europe and the USA (McDowell et al., 2013).
Such a model of economic development is not unusual for countries that are
labor-rich but capital-poor, and certainly is in keeping with profiles of earlier Asian
countries that used it as the first step on the ladder of economic development (Deyo,
1987; Whitley, 1999). Using suppliers to whom work is contracted, Western companies
such as Wal-Mart, Gap, H&M and Spain’s Inditex rely on often complex supply chains
to facilitate garment assembly. But unlike earlier periods of entry level
industrialization that focused on textile and apparel manufacturing, the current
supply chains are part of a new business model called fast fashion. As part of changes
in overall production and marketing strategies, Western firms such as H&M and
Inditex (through their Zara line) embraced a quick response model of production which
was designed to reduce inventory and dramatically reduce the time spent between
initial design of garments and their eventual arrival in retail outlets (Jones, 2002). This
put pressure on suppliers to meet strict delivery deadlines as well as strong cost
mandates, often resulting in work intensification in factories and possible safety short
cuts of the type noted above at Rana Plaza.
In this paper, I examine the various aspects of the new fast fashion model as a way
of evaluating the complex, interdependent origins of the Bangladesh disaster. What
emerges is a picture not so much of arrogance and hubris on the part of factory owners,
but a systemic pattern of exogenous forces that create conditions under which such
events, if not inevitable, are at least not unlikely. We have individual factory owners in
emerging economies pursuing rational self-interest and maximizing
profits/minimizing costs; an institutional framework (international trade regulations,
public policies supportive of such an industrial model and local government that
facilitates a lax regulatory environment) that is both permissive and favors enterprises
that provide employment, often regardless of actual work and safety conditions; and an
industry structure that has rationalized supply chain management through
outsourcing that has placed even greater pressure on cost and time. And finally,
Western consumers have become accustomed to cheap fashion and for the most part
appear unwilling to pay more for items that are untainted by exploitative practices. It
is a situation where the “villains” are many and the innocent caught up in the manifold
uncertainties that such a model produces.
By examining the institutional framework of trade regimes, plus national and local
government policies that facilitate and encourage local firms to take advantage of such
programs, one can examine how local individuals capitalize on such an environment,
whether as sourcing agents, intermediaries or actual factory owners. Corporate social
responsibility frames much of the discussion but not at the expense of considerations
of consumer culpability, or at an even broader level, the growth of materialism in
Western societies. This is not intended as a critique of capitalism, or an indictment of
industrial society; merely a commentary on the complex web of ethical and practical
issues that penetrate deep into the fabric of globalism and the fetishism of
consumerism. Finally, the paper complements other industry studies of poor working
Who is to blame?
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conditions in Bangladesh (Cairns, 2007) as well as examining the production rationale
highlighted by Cairns and Roberts (2007) on the “fashion” industry and its
questionable ethical practices.
Supply chain innovations: lean retailing and quick response
Manufacturing in the clothing industry is labor-intensive, hence competitive success
for manufacturers has been achieved through cost-minimization strategies that
generally revolve around the search for low wage labor. In high wage economies, this
usually involved reducing labor costs through improved productivity as well as
outsourcing lower value-added activities to domestic sub-contractors and then
eventually overseas (Christerson and Appelbaum, 1995; ILO, 1995). As wage and
benefits costs soared in high wage economies during the 1980s and 1990s, more and
more actual assembly was subsequently relocated offshore, with the inevitable
questions raised about global procurement versus worker rights (particularly pay and
work conditions) (see Rosen, 2002; Cairns and Roberts, 2007).
During this same time period, the retail sector became progressively more
concentrated, especially in countries such as the USA and Britain, both of which
traditionally had a large garment manufacturing industry (Taplin and Winterton, 1995).
This concentration endowed retailers (and large wholesalers) with greater buying and
bargaining power in production networks (Gereffi, 1996), further depressing costs from
suppliers as well as demanding greater flexibility in line with rationalized production
replenishment schedules. Pressures on price together with shortened life cycle
dimensions, absent any significant technological innovation that could result in
extensive assembly automation, invariably meant shifting more and more production
overseas (Taplin, 2006a). The remaining domestic manufacturers did embrace new
organizational practices such as team working and modular manufacturing, generally
under the auspices of high performance work practices (HPWP), in order to meet
increased flexibility demands by retailers (Taplin, 2006b). This also generated
innovations that were designed to improve the flow and speed of production and shorten
cycle times that subsequently became known as lean retailing (LR).
LR was designed to limit retailer inventories and was part of a new multi-season
retailing strategy. Rather than the traditional 2-4 seasons of clothing, retailers were
shifting to a model of keeping clothes for 4-6 weeks on the sales floor, then marking
them down and finally shipping them out to various off-price outlets. This permitted
fewer initial mark-downs, greater variety of clothes on display throughout the year,
and a better way of ordering and replenishing stock. Lean retailing enhanced links
among different stages of the production and distribution cycle. By better integrating
the various facets of the channel, made possible in part by inventory management
innovations such as bar codes, the idea was to dramatically reduce the time from
manufacture to final sale. Improved assembly operations and better performance
measures would impart improved efficiency to garment manufacture – or so it was
argued (see Abernathy et al. (1999) for a full discussion of this transformation’s
rationale and implementation).
Such changes imposed new operating systems on manufacturers and many
struggled to find ways to meet the new flexibility and speed demands. Their partial
solution was to attempt to rationalize their own manufacturing systems with the
introduction of what became known as quick response (QR). QR basically enables the
manufacturer to minimize lead times and expenditures for labor, materials and
inventory by transforming their role in the overall supply chain ( Jones, 2002). It
involved logistical and operational changes as firms sought greater flexibility and
production velocity, but done in such ways as to rationalize supply chain management.
But the principal beneficiary remained the retailer, whose size enabled them to dictate
most of the terms from costs and quality to actual product delivery. This merely
reinforced the buyer-driven nature of apparel commodity chains that Gereffi (1996) had
earlier identified.
While technological changes did play a role in QR, through innovations such as
computer aided design (CAD) and computer controlled cutting (CCC) plus better
monitoring of throughput (Jones, 2002), the driving force behind this implementation
came from big retailers. Using their buying power to rationalize the supply chain on
their terms, such retailers were utilizing electronic data interchange (EDI) to place
orders and demand instant replenishment of stock-outs. As Riddle et al. (1999, p. 134)
note, QR increasingly became a competitive necessity for apparel manufacturers rather
than a source of competitive advantage; the majority of the benefits such as sales
increases, reduction in stocks and forecasting error going to the retailers.
Alongside such innovations, increasing de-regulation of labor markets in the USA
and UK promoted a replication of low wage areas in largely inner city immigrant
enclaves that encouraged de facto “third world” conditions to persist in these countries
(Waldinger, 1986; Phizacklea, 1990; Taplin and Winterton, 1996). Notwithstanding
such evident problems and abuses associated with unpaid overtime, below minimum
wages and unsafe workplaces, especially in the USA (Rosen, 2002; Bonacich and
Appelbaum, 2000), these sweatshops nonetheless failed to stem the eventual sourcing
of more and more production overseas.
Changing trade rules and China becomes the world’s factory
Progressive trade liberalization, starting with NAFTA and culminating in the ending
of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) in 1994 after more than 50
years, brought to a close a period where global textile and apparel industries were
heavily regulated. The subsequent replacement of GATT by the World Trade
Organization (WTO) gradually phased out Multi-Fibre Arrangement (MFA) quotas
and lowered tariffs on such goods. This changing trade regime effectively made it
possible for firms to manufacture textiles and apparel anywhere in the world where
technological conditions, labor costs, infrastructure and market proximity were most
optimal (Rosen, 2002).
In the 1980s, China began to invest in its indigenous textile and apparel industry,
seeking to capitalize on its plentiful supply of low-cost labor. Following a number of
bilateral trade agreements between China and the USA, signed in 1980 and 1983, China
increasingly replaced Mexico as the principal exporter of garments to the USA. While
often contentious, the trade agreements nonetheless provided China with a viable path
towards early export-led industrialization, especially since it was able to manipulate
quota regimes to its advantage. By the early 1990s, garment exports were the country’s
largest source of foreign exchange earnings (Rosen, 2002) and by the time China joined
the WTO in 2001 and saw all quotas removed in 2005, it had become the largest and
most efficient apparel and textile producer in the world; the clear “winner” of the
liberalization process with annual industry growth rates of 21 percent (Curran, 2009),
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Bangladesh had been a beneficiary of bi-lateral trade agreements under MFA and
additionally enjoys a preferential tax treatment with the USA (Mlachila and Yang,
2004). It has recently been reported that the government capitalized on this trade
agreement by conferring preferential taxes, duty free machinery imports, letter of
credit facilities without deposit and loans at very low interest rates to support industry
growth. With increased trade liberalization it had been feared that increased
competition from other low wage countries would result in a loss of market share for
Pakistan and Bangladesh. While Pakistan has in fact seen its exports to the EU
stagnate since 2004, Bangladesh has maintained a positive trajectory (Curran, 2009,
p. 308). Much of the explanation for this continued growth is associated with a
slowdown in China’s manufacturing capacity at the same time as its labor costs have
risen following its growing labor shortage (in part a consequence of its earlier one-child
policy as well as rapid industrialization), together with Pakistan’s political instability.
Racing to the bottom
As emerging economies embraced labor intensive textile and apparel manufacturing,
perhaps not surprisingly, many of the exploitative practices that were documented for
Western manufacturers in previous decades (and centuries) surfaced. As Western
firms contracted manufacturing to such countries they demanded low prices and
stringent delivery schedules, the achievement of which was generally predicated on
wage suppression strategies (Esbenshade, 2004; Rosen, 2002). With access to a large
pool of generally compliant, female workers, and with state support for measures that
did little to safeguard or even ensure worker rights, sub-contractors were able to meet
sourcing demands by labor intensification.
In Bangladesh, a 2001 report by the National Labor Committee indicated that there
were 1.6 million apparel workers, 85 percent of whom are young women between 16
and 25, who work 12 to 14-hour days, seven days a week with occasional mandatory
20-hour shifts (NLC, 2001). Sewers were paid 13 to 18 cents an hour (below the
country’s minimum wage) which might not always be typical but nonetheless indicates
systematic avoidance of basic employment laws. Even today, monthly entry level
wages of $40 are a quarter of that in China (Al-Mahmoud, 2013), hence the continued
attractiveness of the country for Western retailers. While child labor has legally been
eliminated, it is estimated that there are still 7 million child workers (Al-Mahmoud,
2013). There remain compliance issues that are routinely ignored by factory owners.
These include lack of fire exits, adequate toilet facilities, and adequate ventilation
(Paul-Majumder, 2001). Finally, according to a McKinsey report, only 1-2 percent of the
5,000 factories had very “high compliance standards” (Financial Times, 2013a).
Such work is nonetheless attractive to female workers, often providing them with
enhanced agency (Sen, 1990), and offering status, autonomy and enhanced self-respect
in societies where they often remained second class citizens (Moran, 2002). For
example, studies of female textile and garment workers in Indonesia report that
employment strengthened their position in the nuclear family, gave them greater
control of their lives and 82 percent indicated that factory work provided better status
than being a housewife (Pangestu and Hendytio, 1997, p. 10). In other words, factory
work was for many of these workers multi-dimensional in its benefits despite the often
arduous work conditions, low pay and long hours. This is especially the case in rural
Bangladesh where alternative employment opportunities are minimal and the poor
work conditions are seen as a trade-off for otherwise second class citizen constraints
(Gibson et al., 2004).
Many small business owners together with local elites who have leveraged their
local power, have set up factories to capitalize on this abundant and often eager labor
pool. In 2006, Bazlus Adnan and a friend, Mahmudur Tapash set up a small garment
factory just outside Dhaka and did work for Benetton Group SpA., most recently
completing an order for 185,000 cotton shirts (Al-Mahmoud et al., 2013). He was
recalled as saying to friends “there’s money in the air – you just need to know how to
grab it” (Al-Mahmoud et al., 2013). In Adnan’s case, seed money for the venture came
from his father, a retired bureaucrat. Although the company struggled at first, the
breakthrough came in 2009 when they were able to gain an order from the Canadian
retailer, Loblaws Co. after the original contractor was unable to deliver. Their
company, now named New Wave, moved to the sixth and seventh floors of Rana Plaza,
occupying 40,000 square feet. Rana Plaza had been built in 2007 by a local
businessman, Mr Rana, and was designed as a multi-purpose factory and store site. It
was at this site that the recent disaster occurred.
Culpability for the disaster, however, does not just rest with Adnan and Tapash and
other factory owners using space at Rana Plaza. In fact many are often courted by local
politicians, looking for ways to increase their own tax base and promote employment.
This was certainly the case at Rana Plaza where the local mayor, Refayet Ullah, a
friend and ally of Adnan, expedited planning permission for the building’s
construction and apparently agreed to certain construction short cuts to speed the
whole process. He was renowned for signing permits for new factories in the area,
claiming that the booming industry in that area did not allow him time to seek
mandatory safety clearances from municipal bodies in Dhakar (Al-Mahmoud et al.,
2013). His actions were not atypical of other factories that were quickly constructed to
take advantage of the export boom in garment assembly. Estimates that roughly 10
percent of seats in Parliament are taken by factory owners confirms the deep political
linkages in this industry between owners and politicians, who are often, it seems, the
same persons (Davidson, 2013, p. 18). Concerned that too much regulation and its
enforcement will raise prices and drive production elsewhere in Asia, politicians often
prefer to turn a blind eye to potential problems for fear of losing what is currently an
$18 billion a year export industry (. To remain competitive, firms extended the work
week and even with overtime pay (not always guaranteed) there remained an incessant
downward pressure on costs from Western companies that often led to work
intensification (Davidson, 2013).
Rationalizing the supply chain
One of the crucial pieces in the reconfigured supply chain is the role of middlemen –
firms in Asian countries that locate contractors to manufacture garments for retailers.
As more firms sourced production overseas in the late 1990s, the complexity of sorting
through the various potential sites increased. It was at this stage that trading
companies assumed an important role. Trading firms such as Hong Kong-based Li and
Fung locate materials needed for manufacture as well as sourcing their production (see
Financial Times, 2013b) and then guarantee that quality, cost and delivery schedules
are met.
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Since they were often already operating in local markets contracting work to smaller
suppliers, trading firms were now able to leverage that local knowledge and place it at
the service of Western firms that were looking for production sites. Initially, the latter
might have engaged in a form of offshore production known as outward processing
trade (OPT) which allowed Western garment firms to export fabric to low cost labor
locations to take advantage of a much lower cost assembly process (Jones, 2002).
However, this soon morphed into allowing the middlemen firms to seek out textile
supplies and then source production, often shifting from country to country to take
advantage of exchange rate fluctuations as well as labor costs. Operational knowledge
thus moved further and further away from the Western firms that were initiating the
sourcing. The greater the operational separation, the less knowledge Western firms have
over local work conditions. It is in this supply chain “gap” that middlemen firms make
decisions about sourcing which in turn can lead to further sub-contracting by the chosen
firm (O’Keefe and Narin, 2013). The result is that in some cases retailers are not aware of
exactly were their products are made, and have not approved the eventually chosen firm.
This renders accountability more and more opaque.
Reputational factors are important in the sourcing selection criteria but typically,
this has to do with the ability to meet deadlines and quality of workmanship, not
necessarily whether or not they employ underage workers, pay below minimum wages
etc. Western firms have often been pressured into more closely monitoring where they
source goods, sometimes even conducting inspections of such sub-contractors
themselves or hiring third party agents to audit on health and safety grounds. But in
the aftermath of Rana Plaza, independent auditors and inspectors acknowledged that
they look for workplace violations (overtime abuses, fire exits) but they do not examine
structural conditions of buildings. Hence even had there been inspections of this site, it
would have failed to identify the physical problems that led to the disaster.
Fast fashion: more is less
In addition to heightened competitive pressures among sub-contractors, who seek to
underbid each other to gain orders, the overall system has come under greater pressure
in the last decade as retailing embraced fast fashion – the logical continuation of lean
retaining and QR. Retailers such as Inditex (Zara), H&M, Topshop, and Forever
Twenty One have built their success on the provision of cheap fashionable items,
aimed at young people who were fashion conscious but income scarce. The model was
simple: stock reasonably inexpensive but fashionable items in limited quantities to
encourage frequent purchase and ensure that stock turnaround in stores was ten days
to two weeks (Choi, 2011). The latter dramatically reduces inventory costs, and the
constant variability of items for sale encourages frequent store visits by consumers.
Gone were the days of 2-4 seasons, which often entailed mark-downs and a near
constant sales atmosphere in bigger department stores. Now consumers could stop by
every 2-3 weeks to check on new items, buy instant fashionability at a low price and
then discard the item after a few times of wearing. For example, Zara estimates that its
clothes are worn no more than seven times and to meet this demand it creates two new
lines every week (Ghemawat and Nueno, 2006).
This is not just a consumer revolution predicated on people wanting “more stuff”; it
is, as Lewis and Dart (2010, p. 57) argue, consumers “demanding” new and now and
favoring the fast fashion brands that can deliver this. Obviously we can embed this
new trend as a logical continuation of what Adorno and Horkheimer (1973) condemned
as the “culture industry”; clothes in this instance being the opiate of the masses. But
this downplays human agency and the powerful search for an affordable individualism
that such a new retailing makes possible; what Morgan and Birtwistle (2009) see as
“disposable habits”. This is both a cultural and consumer revolution, but one that is
also predicated on supply chain rationalization and organizational changes that have
kept clothing prices low if not lower than in the previous decades. Consumers are
demanding greater variety, the instant gratification of seemingly being a fashion icon
without the attendant expense incurred by previous generations; retailers have
reconfigured supply chains to facilitate speed and low cost production; sub-contractors
have aggressively competed with each other to gain valuable orders, and in order to do
so, intensified work and depressed wages.
As more and more retailers adopt business strategies aimed at reducing their lead
times and improving their speed to market and newness of product (Levy and Weitz,
2008; Barnes and Lea-Greenwood, 2013), fast fashion has become the norm with some
even seeing it as a way to further internationalize their retail business (Runfola and
Guercini, 2013). By successfully locating low cost production sources in emerging
economies (such as Bangladesh) where input costs (labor) are low and productivity in
the use of those inputs is high (work intensification practices), the race to the bottom
will continue. Despite well documented abuses that are manifest in such countries, the
average Western consumer remains relatively indifferent to the plight of those workers
overseas or altering their purchasing behavior (Tobin, 2013). Most have been reluctant
to pay much more for items to guarantee they have not been made in sweatshop
conditions (Santoro, 2000). Western retailers meanwhile are somewhat ambiguous in
their corporate social responsibility programs. Some have managed to forge
collaborative partnerships with their suppliers and minimized work place abuses
and environmental problems, without it affecting their competitive advantage; others
remain captives of the strategies that exploit questionable local conditions (child labor,
corrupt public officials, lax environmental conditions) (Arrigo, 2013).
Final comments
Any workplace accident focuses initial responsibility on the owners and it often
remains incumbent on them to acknowledge liability or shift it to other parties who
might be implicated contractually. In Western societies, with established legal
frameworks, it is in the courts that ultimate assignation of blame and resulting
obligations are hammered out. Not surprisingly, such societies are often seen as
excessively litigious (one recent quip noted the rule of law having been replaced by the
“rule of lawyers”). Despite legal frameworks in emerging economies, the lack of
transparency and institutional corruption can undermine due process and leave the
average citizen (or family members of injured or killed workers) frustrated at the
apparent inaction (see Murphy, 2011). The litigation process is therefore unreliable,
unpredictable and for many inaccessible. The apparent dilution of accountability
merely compounds problems rather than resolving them.
In the wake of events at Rana Plaza, there has been much handwringing by public
officials in Bangladesh, promises of investigation, and even arrests of key figures.
However, The Economist argued that blame should lie with the Bangladeshi
government, which has largely failed to enforce national building codes, especially
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those structures owned by well-connected landlords (The Economist, 2013, p. 12). By
encouraging growth strategies that provide de facto support for labor abuses, the
government itself becomes accountable for the ensuing problems.
The disaster has also led to a flurry of articles in the press castigating Western
retailers for not holding their subcontractors more accountable. The resulting soul
searching by firms such as Spain’s Mango MNG Holding SL and retailer El Cortes
Ingles, both of which had clothes in the destroyed factory, has led them to question the
costs of fast fashion (Moffett, 2013). Yet at the same time, they cannot ignore the
centrality of this quick-turnaround strategy that underlies their tremendous growth in
the past decade.
Whether one can feasibly maintain the fast fashion model of producing quickly
while maintaining safety, is a question many are pondering. A corporate social
responsibility executive with another Spanish company points out that “you can’t have
the corporate social responsibility department saying that factory overtime hours have
to be kept at reasonable levels and then the purchasing department demanding 10,000
pink blouses delivered in a week” (quoted in Moffett, 2013). Such contradictory
pressures within firms often dilute CSR programs that were put in place following
earlier accidents. Even when programs exist, retailers acknowledge that they cannot
watch everything that occurs in factories or fully track their suppliers (Hansegard et al.,
2013). In the months after the disaster various efforts to agree on a broad framework or
“rules of conduct” by retailers has failed to gain traction. Some such as Wal-Mart say
they have a zero-tolerance policy to automatically cut ties with contractors that violate
its standards (Hansegard et al., 2013). But switching to another supplier does not
guarantee the problems will not resurface, it merely postpones or transfers it.
If firms are to continue with the fast fashion model, they could abandon Bangladesh
and seek contractors elsewhere. This was voiced by some in the days immediately after
the disaster as the ultimate protest at what happened. But there is no guarantee that
similar problems would not emerge in another country given the essence of this
business model and pervasive corruption/lack of transparency in many emerging
economies (see Brown and Cloke, 2011; Murphy, 2011). If Western retailers continue to
source in the country, as many urge they do (The Economist, 2013; Al-Mahmoud et al.,
2013), they can conceivably work with the government to fix many of the issues and
hold the government, as well as contractors, more accountable. The implied threat of
leaving can be effective but only by staying can firms work with contractors to
implement better workplace procedures (such as Wal-Mart’s fire safety plan and Gap’s
offer to help contractors upgrade their plants). The verdict on this experiment,
however, remains inconclusive.
Ethical supply chains promises will never easily mesh with institutional
frameworks riddled with corruption. Fast fashion will continue to expose the
difficulty of reconciling the need to create revenue and efficiency with safe work
practices, as noted by Cairns and Roberts (2007). With a business model that privileges
the consumer (through low prices) over the worker, and in an institutional framework
that is largely complicit with such a system, problems such as that at Rana Plaza will
persist. By essentially “demanding” the products of fast fashion, however much that
system was created to drive consumption, consumers are now dependent on it and
ultimately bear some responsibility for its adverse consequences. Their apparent
insatiable appetite for relatively inexpensive goods and the unwillingness to
contemplate higher prices that might guarantee better work practices means “business
as usual” for retailers. What started as a business strategy designed to speed
throughput, reduce inventory and lower operational costs has become a life style choice
for many consumers, especially those with limited incomes. To ask them to abandon,
or at least moderate, their consumption habits is tantamount to questioning their
“freedom of choice” that has been so ingrained in Western consumer culture. It is
reasonable to surmise that expecting the average consumer to forsake their lifestyle is
highly unlikely.
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About the author
Ian M. Taplin is Professor of Sociology and International Studies at Wake Forest University,
North Carolina and Visiting Research Professor, Kedge Business School, Bordeaux. His current
research focuses on an analysis of the changing competitive landscape among ultra-premium
wineries in Napa Valley, California; part of a broader project examining evolution and change
within the luxury goods industry. He is North American Editor of the Journal of Fashion
Marketing and Management. Ian M. Taplin can be contacted at: taplin@wfu.edu
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