According to the tendency that many fast fashion brands seeking maximized profits without considering to meet high standard of ethics and social responsibility, especially the recent accident happened in 2013 for Canadian fast fashion brand- Joe Fresh, here are my insights.
The most important point is that it may be immoral for fast fashion retailers form the West to locate their factories in low wage undeveloped countries where labors must work in a laborious environment for a long time everyday with quite limited wages. Since the philosophy of fast fashion brands is producing fancy, modern and economical clothes with a speedy inspiration to capture the latest world’s fashion tendency, it is generally recognized that fast fashion should seek places with low cost and large number of labor to cater to the need of fast-paced production. Nevertheless, many corporates neglect their social responsibilities when they administrate staffs; for instance, to manufacture cheap textiles with a high speed, Joe Fresh ignored to protect workers’ human rights. More precisely, it overlooked to check the basic structural integrity of building regularly; therefore, this negligence gave a rise to the collapsing and several violent fires in its factory. The ignorance of safety infrastructure renovation represents that the company did not perform well in assuming responsibilities for employees, since fast fashion retailers should have an obligation to provide an acceptable working environment for their labors. Furthermore, the tendency is that more and more customers are willing to pay higher prices for their fast fashion clothing to improve working circumstances in underdeveloped countries, and this is a persuasive evidence that corporates should shoulder their responsibilities for their employees.
Another essential point is that whether to leave the production base or continue to put more emphasis on conducting better in the role of ethics under the circumstance of recent collapsing accident in Bangladesh in 2013 has sparked much debate. More specifically, some people contemplate that low-wage textiles industry is a required incitement for underdeveloped countries trying to associate to the global economic integration of the 21st century, while other individuals arguse that it may be cruel exploitation of impoverished and weak people, especially women and children, to invent garments for wealthy customers at quite unreasonable prices. Indisputably, numerous retailers, such as Disney, determined to leave Bangladesh due to fear of the similar disaster happening again and uncertainty of abundant legislations to safeguard their workers’ rights. However, considering the low-wage textiles industry can facilitate the development of developing countries’ economy, it is believed that pulling over market suddenly may be unprincipled.
