What is The Fair Wear Foundation?
A clothing factory with safe working conditions, where workers can work voluntarily and earn at least a minimum wage. In that factory you couldn’t suddenly be fired and you have the rights to take a few days off every year. It sounds like that makes sense, but is yet only a dream for a big part of the people working in the clothing sector. The Fair Wear Foundation believes that ethical fashion should become the standard and that therefore many clothing factories need to change.
The Fair Wear Foundation does this in four different ways: brand evaluations, factory inspections, factory trainings and free help lines.
Brand evaluations
Every year The Fair Wear Foundation checks on the brands that are connected with the organization. They evaluate how brands treat issues like working conditions, contact with factories and potential complications to this. The brands show their plans for the upcoming year and FWF (The Fairwear Foundation) checks if these are realistic.
Factory inspections
For a factory inspection the FWF sends a group of local auditors to the factory. They look at the bussiness operations, talk with workers and do several health and safety checks. De controleurs stellen een verslag op van de fabriek en kijken samen met de fabriekshouder naar eventuele verbeteringen en stellen een plan van aanpak op. De auditors make a report about the factory and discuss with the factory owner what potential improvements could be. Afterwards, FWF will look at how the factory implemented these plans.
Factory trainings
The Fair Wear Foundation understands that rules from outsiders have less impact than a changing mentality and culture within the organization. That is why FWF organizes trainings to improve the communication between factory workers and their managers. This way the policies can be changed from within the organization.
Help lines
Lastly, The Fair Wear Foundation provides a platform for workers where they can go to with any complaints or questions. If their rights are violated of when they see this happening for others, they can always contact The Fair Wear Foundation. FWF then starts an investigation and tries to find a solution together with the factory.
What does The Fair Wear Foundation check?
The Fair Wear Foundation follows eight labor standards. These norms are in line with the International Labour Organisation (ILO) conventions and the UN – Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
At the factory floor…
- the worker works completely voluntarily
- is discrimination not tolerated
- is child labor not tolerated
- is freedom of union
- the worker earns enough wage to be able to live from
- the worker works according to normal working times
- the worker is assured of a legally binding employment contract
- there are safe and healthy working conditions
Why is this label so important?
It is no secret that the fashion industry doesn’t do a very good job when it comes to ethical and fair working conditions. Child labor, extremely low wages, excessive overtimes, unsafe working conditions and the use of toxic chemicals happen in many factories. So now you why cheap fashion is so cheap. Fortunately, there’s a growing market of ethical and fair clothing brands. These types of brands respect human rights of the workers and creat safe working conditions for them. The Fair Wear Foundation is one of the labels that helps you recognizing these ethical brands.
Do you want more information?
Check out the website of The Fair Wear Foundation for more information!
Or watch this video in which the work of The Fair Wear Foundation is once again explained.
The Fair Wear certificed clothing at Stricters.com
All clothes on stricters.com is Fair Wear certified.
