Zara – followthethings.com

“Beautiful Clothes, Ugly Reality“
A parody catwalk show by garment factory workers sponsored by the Workers’ Information Centre & United Sisterhood Alliance, Phnom Penh, Cambodia, filmed & posted online by Heather Stillwell. See the Chenla Media version here.

Six months after police shot into a crowd of protesting garment workers in Phnom Penh, Cambodian garment workers turned to another kind of protest, a fashion show. Wearing the clothes they were paid so little to make and re-creating scenes from the violent crackdown on their street protests on stage, they challenged Western brands to play their part in stopping this violence and exploitation and paying the people who make their clothes a decent wage. Canadian photojournalist Heather Stillwell’s online film of the show went went viral. How did this happen, and what impacts did it have?

Page reference: Caroline Weston Goodman (2018) Beautiful Clothes, Ugly Reality. followthethings.com/beautiful-clothes-ugly-reality.shtml (last accessed <insert date here>)

Page also available in Finnish here (coming soon)

Estimated reading time: 50 minutes.

Posted on August 28, 2024January 26, 2025 by Ian Cook

The Messenger Band

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Fashion

“The Messenger Band“
A protest girl band / labour rights NGO including Em [aka Saem] Vun, Leng Leakhana, Chrek Sopha, Nam Sophors, Kao Sochevika, Sothary Kun, Van Huon & others based in Phnom Penh, Cambodia.
Band profile and selected music videos on YouTube embedded in playlist above. The Messenger Band YouTube channel here & facebook page here.

One of the most fascinating, inspiring examples of creative trade justice activism we have found. Made by garment workers, for garment (and other) workers. In 2005, a labour rights NGO based in Phnom Penh, Cambodia hold a talent concert for women working in the city’s garment factories. They want to form a girl band. Inspired by Bob Marley, it’s called ‘The Messenger Band’ because its songs and performances will carry a message to garment and other workers about their rights. They will write and perform in the style of contemporary Cambodian pop music. Sweet and beautiful songs with choreographed dance routines. But the lyrics will come from their community research with garment and other workers about their lives and struggles, and their knowledge of global trade and labour rights. They will record CDs and music videos to post online, and will perform at local concerts and during labour rights protests. Their audiences will learn the lyrics and sing along. The ‘MB’ wants to empower its audiences to claim their rights and to hold their employers to account. They sing in Khmer for Khmer-speaking audiences. They are not talking to overseas consumers, asking them to do anything to help their situation. They take advantage of the fact that women and performance are not taken seriously by the Cambodian authorities. But they are taken seriously by the working class audiences who love and learn from their music. What they do has a huge impact. Much more impact than a labour rights workshop! Labour rights organisations and NGOs outside Cambodia admire their work. They are an inspiration.

Page reference: Lily Bissell, Grace Hodges, Fran Ravel, Julia Sammut & Ellie Reynolds (2020) The Messenger Band. followthethings.com/the-messenger-band.shtml (last accessed <insert date here>)

Estimated reading time: 62 minutes.

Posted on August 28, 2024January 27, 2025 by Ian Cook

The Accord On Fire & Building Safety In Bangladesh

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Fashion

IMPROVE PAY & CONDITIONS

HAVE A THEORY OF CHANGE

FIND THE UNIONS

JOIN WITH OTHERS

HOLD ‘EM ACCOUNTABLE

“The Accord On Fire & Building Safety In Bangladesh“
An independent legally binding global framework agreement between fashion brands, retailers & trade unions.
Click the screengrabs to read the agreement on IndustriALL Global Union’s website.

What if brands, retailers and labour unions could agree on a ways to ensure the safety of millions of people working in garment factories to prevent the factory fires and collapses that have killed and injured so many? They did, in the wake of the Rana Plaza factory complex collapse in Dhaka, Bangladesh in April 2013 where more than 1,100 garment workers making clothes for Western high street brands were crushed to death. Under this agreement, health and safety committees would be democratically elected in all factories and would identify and take action relating to concerns they identified. Factories would have independent safety inspections. The results and corrective actions outlined in these reports would be made public. The brands signing the agreement would continue to have their clothes made in the unsafe factories and would fund the corrective actions to make them safer. And factory workers would be trained in health and safety, could make complaints without fear of reprisal and could refuse to work in unsafe conditions. Wow! Could this work? Would brands sign up? Would workers see the benefits? What would happen 5 years later, when the agreement ran out? Could workers in other countries benefit from the same kind of agreement?

Page reference: Chris Crane, Alex Danvers, Robbie Foley, Will Kelleher, Mike Stanton & Adam Williams (2013) The Accord On Fire & Building Safety In Bangladesh (taster). followthethings.com/the-accord-on-fire-building-safety-in-bangladesh.shtml (last accessed <insert date here>)

Estimated reading time: 13 minutes.

Posted on August 28, 2024February 20, 2025 by Ian Cook

University Lifestyle: Fabulously British

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Fashion | Grocery | Electronics | Home & Auto

“University Lifestyle: Fabulously British“
Undergraduate coursework designed & written by Charlotte Brunton.
Available in full in slideshow above. High resolution download available here.

After researching examples of trade justice activism to add to this site, students taking CEO Ian’s ‘Geographies of material culture’ module at the University of Exeter are tasked to make their own. Charlotte Brunton’s inspiration comes from the junk mail arriving at her student house. Instead of getting interesting letters, she and her housemates get student fashion catalogues. In particular, Jack Wills catalogues – six or more every season. They’re selling students an ‘aspirational’ lifestyle, tempting them to buy the commodities they feature. The people in them, the things they have, the carefree, stylish and connected lifestyles they picture – the designers want students to want them. Charlotte and her friends imagine themselves using this, wearing that, experiencing the lifestyles these things can support, together. But who made these things? What about their lifestyles? Charlotte asks herself how she can create a catalogue that highlights how personal these things are both to her and to the people who made them? In real life, she has an interdependent, culture-crossing, ‘British’ life which they are very much part of. So she designs a ‘lifestyle catalogue’ that you can browse to imagine and buy into with her.

Page reference: Charlotte Brunton (2014) University Lifestyle: Fabulously British. followthethings.com/university-lifestyle-fabulously-british.shtml (last accessed <insert date here>)

Estimated browsing time: 15 minutes.

Posted on August 21, 2024January 5, 2025 by Mark

UDITA (ARISE)

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Fashion

“UDITA (ARISE)“
A documentary film directed by Hannan Majid & Richard York of the Rainbow Collective.
Available in full on YouTube (embedded above).

The women who work in garment factories in the Global South are often seen by factory bosses as docile and nimble fingered and by Global North journalists and activists as victims in need of saving from capitalist exploitation. But what if there was a film about their work, lives and struggles that was told from their perspectives? Watch UDITA (ASRISE)! Filmed in Dhaka, Bangladesh over five years – starting before and ending after the Rana Plaza factory collapse which killed so many women like them (including their friends and relatives) – Hannah Majid & Richard York show garment workers as an organised body of people teaching, learning and fighting for their labour rights through the campaigning and strike action of Bangladesh’s National Garment Workers’ Federation. There’s no Western filmmaker narrating their quest to find out who made their clothes. There’s no voiceover at all. The only voices are those of the women themselves. They are less interested in what ‘guilty’ consumers in the Global North can do to help them, and more interested in what they can do to help each other. So, who would want to see a film like this? Who was it made for? What are audiences supposed to take away from it? One answer is to appreciate how garment workers in the Global South have powerful collective agency. This is a fundamental, but often neglected, principle in trade justice activism. An important move for audiences to make, as the philosopher Iris Marion Young has put it, ‘from guilt to solidarity’.

Page reference: Theo Barker, Joe Collier, Annabel Baker, Lizzie Coppen & Henry Eve (2020) UDITA (ARISE). followthethings.com/udita.shtml (last accessed <insert date here>)

Estimated reading time: 48 minutes.