Migrant Worker Employment Standards at Patagonia
June 5, 2015 1:05 PM Subscribe
The Unacceptably High Cost of Labor – How a deeper dive into our supply chain led to a new Migrant Worker Standard. Patagonia started auditing their supply chain in 2011 and uncovered the dark side of migrant-worker relations in Taiwan.
Their timeline was actually fairly interesting reading, I thought.
posted by aramaic at 1:34 PM on June 5, 2015
posted by aramaic at 1:34 PM on June 5, 2015
You could do all this auditing and enforcement and so forth, orrrr... you could just make your products in the US. Patagonia products are expensive as it is (though they do last forever) so I wonder how much US labor would really raise the prices.
posted by desjardins at 1:43 PM on June 5, 2015 [5 favorites]
posted by desjardins at 1:43 PM on June 5, 2015 [5 favorites]
Patagonia has said again and again that there is no way they can do manufacturing in the US. I don't know exactly why that is, but basically the factories, materials and workmanship no longer exist here. Good for them for being transparent. If the companies that are trying to source labor ethically can't do it, just imagine how bad it is for everyone else. There is basically no ethical way to buy new clothes.
posted by mike_bling at 1:52 PM on June 5, 2015 [1 favorite]
posted by mike_bling at 1:52 PM on June 5, 2015 [1 favorite]
Yeah, if only the article spoke to why they don't manufacture in the U.S....
The shrinking textile industry in the United States is due in large part to trade agreements, including NAFTA (duty free with Mexico & Canada), CAFTA (duty free with Central American countries), ATPA (duty free with Colombia and other Andean countries ), and IFTA (duty free from Israel). These trade agreements have directly contributed to the dramatic decline in the U.S. based textile and sewn product industries since 1994. Patagonia fought NAFTA, and paid for ads in The New York Times and newspapers around the county in opposition to the NAFTA treaty because we feared it would degrade environmental standards and because it would displace American workers.
...
About half our sales today come from outside the United States, so manufacturing here, if we had the way to do so, would not necessarily result in environmental benefits from reduced transportation. We do think that strong long-term environmental arguments can be made on behalf of localism, of manufacturing closer to the point of purchase. Two mitigating short-term factors: the enormity of change that would be required and the surprisingly low environmental cost of transportation, which accounts for less than 2% of the carbon footprint of our products.
That said, we work with factories in the United States as often as we can: In Los Angeles, we continue to work with a variety of suppliers, while at the same time we have long-term factory relationships in Texas and North Carolina. The factory we work with in Texas hires disabled workers, one of the reasons we work with them. Our new fishing crampons are made in Ventura, California, not far from company headquarters. Having said that we're not a made in America company, we are not immune to the suffering of people out of work in our country. As we become aware of new suppliers in the U.S., we investigate them.
And later, in the comments:
We currently have 8 factories in the United States making our products and 39 more for materials and trims. As for the factories with which we contract, we have an in-house corporate responsibility team that vets our factories (no matter where they are) and an independent auditor that does the same.
Our Corporate Responsibility Director has audited hundreds of factories in the U.S. over the past 15 years and, in fact, some of the U.S. factories were worse than those overseas.
While the eight factories do not represent a large percent of our overall volume, we consciously try to source in the United States as much as we can. The global chase for skilled labor and low cost has caused the U.S. garment industry to pretty much shut down. Even in its heyday, U.S. garment factories didn’t have the expertise to make our most technical products. Though we do manufacture some Patagonia garments in the United States, they are few and limited to some of our more basic styles.
Is it environmentally unsound to manufacture globally and ship goods great distances?
In a word, yes, but it’s complicated. Shipping contributes only a small percentage (1 to 2 percent) of carbon output and energy. Of shipping methods, ocean and rail are most efficient and less harmful; airfreight and transport by truck the least desirable. One way to reduce transportation is to cluster a supply chain as much as possible (with relatively short distances from farm to mill to factory to port); this is common practice in China, India and Vietnam. Because we sell worldwide, manufacturing solely in the U.S., if it were possible, would not provide a significant advantage. This link gives you more information:
http://www.patagonia.com/us/patagonia.go?assetid=67517
posted by craven_morhead at 2:22 PM on June 5, 2015 [11 favorites]
The shrinking textile industry in the United States is due in large part to trade agreements, including NAFTA (duty free with Mexico & Canada), CAFTA (duty free with Central American countries), ATPA (duty free with Colombia and other Andean countries ), and IFTA (duty free from Israel). These trade agreements have directly contributed to the dramatic decline in the U.S. based textile and sewn product industries since 1994. Patagonia fought NAFTA, and paid for ads in The New York Times and newspapers around the county in opposition to the NAFTA treaty because we feared it would degrade environmental standards and because it would displace American workers.
...
About half our sales today come from outside the United States, so manufacturing here, if we had the way to do so, would not necessarily result in environmental benefits from reduced transportation. We do think that strong long-term environmental arguments can be made on behalf of localism, of manufacturing closer to the point of purchase. Two mitigating short-term factors: the enormity of change that would be required and the surprisingly low environmental cost of transportation, which accounts for less than 2% of the carbon footprint of our products.
That said, we work with factories in the United States as often as we can: In Los Angeles, we continue to work with a variety of suppliers, while at the same time we have long-term factory relationships in Texas and North Carolina. The factory we work with in Texas hires disabled workers, one of the reasons we work with them. Our new fishing crampons are made in Ventura, California, not far from company headquarters. Having said that we're not a made in America company, we are not immune to the suffering of people out of work in our country. As we become aware of new suppliers in the U.S., we investigate them.
And later, in the comments:
We currently have 8 factories in the United States making our products and 39 more for materials and trims. As for the factories with which we contract, we have an in-house corporate responsibility team that vets our factories (no matter where they are) and an independent auditor that does the same.
Our Corporate Responsibility Director has audited hundreds of factories in the U.S. over the past 15 years and, in fact, some of the U.S. factories were worse than those overseas.
While the eight factories do not represent a large percent of our overall volume, we consciously try to source in the United States as much as we can. The global chase for skilled labor and low cost has caused the U.S. garment industry to pretty much shut down. Even in its heyday, U.S. garment factories didn’t have the expertise to make our most technical products. Though we do manufacture some Patagonia garments in the United States, they are few and limited to some of our more basic styles.
Is it environmentally unsound to manufacture globally and ship goods great distances?
In a word, yes, but it’s complicated. Shipping contributes only a small percentage (1 to 2 percent) of carbon output and energy. Of shipping methods, ocean and rail are most efficient and less harmful; airfreight and transport by truck the least desirable. One way to reduce transportation is to cluster a supply chain as much as possible (with relatively short distances from farm to mill to factory to port); this is common practice in China, India and Vietnam. Because we sell worldwide, manufacturing solely in the U.S., if it were possible, would not provide a significant advantage. This link gives you more information:
http://www.patagonia.com/us/patagonia.go?assetid=67517
posted by craven_morhead at 2:22 PM on June 5, 2015 [11 favorites]
Patagonia has said again and again that there is no way they can do manufacturing in the US. I don't know exactly why that is, but basically the factories, materials and workmanship no longer exist here.
Sending production overseas didn't mean just exporting jobs -- entire factories got boxed up and shipped as well. Some people I know where involved in sending a (non-clothing) factory to Chile. Some of them had worked at the plant, and it was a hard process for them to go through the careful process of disassembling the machinery and putting it in shipping containers. All of it is still working and still employing people, but on the other side of the world. There is economic efficiency in that, certainly, but also a lot of pain.
This report is talking about another form of pain from that, and one that is especially invisible at the receiving end of the goods produced. I'm glad that they are trying to do better, but these are not problems that are appropriately solved at the company level.
posted by Dip Flash at 7:50 PM on June 5, 2015 [2 favorites]
Sending production overseas didn't mean just exporting jobs -- entire factories got boxed up and shipped as well. Some people I know where involved in sending a (non-clothing) factory to Chile. Some of them had worked at the plant, and it was a hard process for them to go through the careful process of disassembling the machinery and putting it in shipping containers. All of it is still working and still employing people, but on the other side of the world. There is economic efficiency in that, certainly, but also a lot of pain.
This report is talking about another form of pain from that, and one that is especially invisible at the receiving end of the goods produced. I'm glad that they are trying to do better, but these are not problems that are appropriately solved at the company level.
posted by Dip Flash at 7:50 PM on June 5, 2015 [2 favorites]
While the eight factories do not represent a large percent of our overall volume, we consciously try to source in the United States as much as we can. The global chase for skilled labor and low cost has caused the U.S. garment industry to pretty much shut down. Even in its heyday, U.S. garment factories didn’t have the expertise to make our most technical products. Though we do manufacture some Patagonia garments in the United States, they are few and limited to some of our more basic styles.
I can almost guarantee you if you did away with Patagonia's military production they would probably have zero factories in the US. It's pretty disingenuous to say that, "even in it's heydey, U.S. garment factories didn't have the expertise to make our most technical products", because a lot of that equipment and those techniques weren't around in the early 90's when they started moving their production overseas. Bonding and welding garments is not rocket science by any means, but it is almost impossible to automate and requires a hell of a lot of human labor. Hence why they make their technical garments in places where their workers make $28/month.
I guess kudos to them for at least thinking about this stuff when so few apparel companies do, but it's convenient for them to say, well, there's no way we can make stuff in the US anymore because the infrastructure doesn't exist, when they themselves were complicit in it leaving in the first place. And if they were so against NAFTA and the other trade agreements why didn't they stick to their principles and maintain their relationships with US factories? They could have, but instead they followed everybody else and in the process literally destroyed a major industry in the US.
posted by alpinist at 1:02 PM on June 6, 2015 [2 favorites]
I can almost guarantee you if you did away with Patagonia's military production they would probably have zero factories in the US. It's pretty disingenuous to say that, "even in it's heydey, U.S. garment factories didn't have the expertise to make our most technical products", because a lot of that equipment and those techniques weren't around in the early 90's when they started moving their production overseas. Bonding and welding garments is not rocket science by any means, but it is almost impossible to automate and requires a hell of a lot of human labor. Hence why they make their technical garments in places where their workers make $28/month.
I guess kudos to them for at least thinking about this stuff when so few apparel companies do, but it's convenient for them to say, well, there's no way we can make stuff in the US anymore because the infrastructure doesn't exist, when they themselves were complicit in it leaving in the first place. And if they were so against NAFTA and the other trade agreements why didn't they stick to their principles and maintain their relationships with US factories? They could have, but instead they followed everybody else and in the process literally destroyed a major industry in the US.
posted by alpinist at 1:02 PM on June 6, 2015 [2 favorites]
I dunno, dude, if Patagonia falls down for you as an ethical clothing company, I hope you go naked cause they are just about the most ethical out there. I'd be inclined to believe what they say; they certainly know more about clothing production and have the track record of great practice and ethics to back it up.
posted by smoke at 3:45 PM on June 6, 2015
posted by smoke at 3:45 PM on June 6, 2015
I own a garment factory that makes clothing in the US. In a past iteration our factory used to do production for Patagonia.
posted by alpinist at 5:09 PM on June 6, 2015
posted by alpinist at 5:09 PM on June 6, 2015
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posted by slater at 1:10 PM on June 5, 2015