Individual Written Assessment Sample
Introduction
The case in the market scenario of the Asian factories that have been the major sourcing channel for the different western fashion brands and it may be said that the brands have been unaware of the exploitation that has been widespread in the Asian factories. Moreover, the lack of basic humanitarian conditions has been a great issue that receives much less media coverage, where the objective of the report is to understand the problem of excessive exploitation of workers.
Critical evaluation of the response of Western fashion brands to controversy related to the treatment of garment workers in Asia
Threats faced by the Western fashion brands about the social controversy on garment manufacturing conditions in Asia
The threats that have been rife in the industrial conditions for the Asian factories are more related to the intensive worker humiliation, non-caring about the working conditions and making the life of the workers quite miserable, devoid of any kind of inspection that ensures worker safety. The compassion may be shown in quite a direct manner, wherein the Australian factories the grievance felt by the workers have been directly addressed by the manner, wherein the nation of China, the reverse had taken place showing the ways of excessive factory owner domination (Lambert and Chan, 2018). The conditions are even so poor in the Asian factories, especially in China and in Indian factories, which have gone through court trials.
Brands facing the problem of excessive labor turnover in Asian factories
The Asian brands have made the scenario more complex regarding the non-monitoring of the different working conditions that are prevalent in the factories of Asia thus allowing for the scope of intensive labor turnover. There are gender issues that are present in the societies of their Asian nations, where the double male-dominated system has made the triggering of the unions have a good activist approach be adopted and thus get against the entire working framework (Evans, 2017).
Figure 1: Gender equality proportion in Asian countries
(Source: Evans, 2017)
The issue of the excessive turnover of the workers in Asian factories is quite common and goes unrecorded without a proper strategic movement from the government surveillance, where H&M cases may be described. The increase in the hostility among the management and the union labourers in the Asian factories that have a direct connection to the Western fashion braves has been witnessing the growing chase of the hostility, which is of great concern (Chan, 2019). It has been reported that the people from the different workers in Asian factories that had a direct connection to H&M, had made complaints that had been either overlooked or not attended (Refer to Evidence Portfolio 1).
Brands facing the issue of insufficient and untimely layoff issues
The case of Vietnam, the nation located in the Southern parts of Asia, has been the witness of several cases where a large breach has been observed in the minimum wage system and excessive overtime cases of workers. The fashion brand of Zara has been affected in terms of the excessive working hours in Vietnam factories and the silence of the government without having the essential guidelines be imposed on the different working conditions has created sufficient controversy (Refer to Evidence Portfolio 2). Many Asian factories have tried to follow and be indifferent to the hardships of the workers, whereas the basic working conditions have not been attended to by the Western factories (Peruzzini and Pellicciari, 2017).
Brand positioning, brand vision and brand experience threats
The brand positioning, brand vision and the brand experience threats may be mentioned as the poor worker employee collaboration, no monitoring rules to care about the excessive working time and scoring too low on the scale of women workers’ participation rate are the loss to these factors. The theory of the brand benefits ladder may be termed as the way of creating the projection of the different elements of the consumer psychological effects and considering the overall life term of the product, where the brand value may be increased by more brand promotion (Borkovsky et al., 2017).
The case of H&M is more appropriately described when the logistics chain of the company in the Asian regions is better inspected, which has the zero following of the labour guidelines and has no clarity in following the required areas of governmental labour rules. The lack of supporting documents and the visibility lacking in the exact working conditions of the labour of H&M has made the organization suffer to a large extent and thus lead to the issue of suspecting that the brand vision of the company surfers to a wide extent (Refer to Evidence Portfolio 4). This has led to the problem of the brand managers having a hard time in the brand positioning and having a better brand vision, where market positioning strategy has suffered in the context of losing important contacts from different European nations in the future.
CSR policies revision of Western fashion brands
The Triple Bottom Line theory of the CSR objective that the companies usually adopt becomes the crucial directional method to let the discussion flow. The Triple Bottom Line theory makes sure that the aspect of social, environmental and the inclusion of a better sustainable curriculum makes complete sense for the business. In the current context, the fashion brands that become unaware or indifferent to the places of the exploitation cases of the labourers in the Asian clothing factories, are examples to study the CSR policies much better. The CSR policy of H&M has been to ensure the best sanitation and hygienic conditions, which undermines the reality in the Asian regions of Indian and Korean factories, where lots of workers have passed away in the capital of India describing the excessively harsh conditions of working (Refer to Evidence Portfolio 5). Moreover, the CSR policies that have been undermined suffer the reason that the garment industry lacks management of the workers, resulting in doubts (White et al., 2017).
Public relations issues arising due to the situation in Asia
The public relation of the fashion clothing industry of western brands is recently facing the major issues of ethical contracts regarding employment and exploitation of labour in Asia where the western brands used to procure the clothing product. Lack of transparency in engagement with the supply chain partners usually causes the issue of exploitation of labour in sweatshops across the textile industry in Asia. Generally, western brands used to source the clothing material from the low-cost factories in Asia where poverty is so immense that employees have to serve around 12-14 hours in a typical day ignoring the physical and mental well being of the individual (Christ et al., 2020). The wage rate is also too low to neglect overtime income for the employees where the work environment is not meeting the standard health and safety of the employee and the news of mishaps and loss of life has been coming in news frequently (Refer to Evidence Portfolio 4). This unethical and improper working condition has negatively influenced the public perception of the brand’s responsibility and attitude which may lead to the potential boycott of clothing goods of the reputed brands by the consumer.
The incorporation of business ethics and human rights in the organizational culture may help the organization engage with the supply chain partner eliminating the harshness of working conditions and exploitation of employees in textile manufacturing through effective HRM (McLaughlin et al., 2018).
The Systems theory for the public relation has accompanied the interrelated parts who used to adapt and adjust to the changes in the political, social and economic environment to carry forward the business operation. It gave the opportunity to crucially understand and manage the relationship with the stakeholders as well as the consumers through interconnectedness and effective decision making to address the problem of the business environment (Osswald, 2019).
On the other hand, the Social exchange theory is a prominent public relations theory that is involved in the cost-benefit structure between the two for engaging in a relationship. It eventually focuses on the value proposition of the brand where the brand is co-crating value for the employee with the help of customers. It focuses on individual interest over ginning reward and avoiding the punishment through which companies may convey the message to the consumer with high pricing of the product where high brand loyalty may remain effective for empowering the employee in the Asian textile manufacturing unit (Wang et al., 2019).
Evaluate the process done by the western fashion brands to restore consumer confidence
The exploitation of employees in the garment and textile industry is now a global problem where the mainstream media is concentrated and surfaced the news of the ill-treatment given to the employee on a regular basis in the sweatshops across the Asian textile manufacturing industry. The western fashion brands generally sourced the manufactured clothing material from the Asian manufacturers with a low-cost procurement strategy to keep the low pricing strategy of the product and the burden went on to the hard-earned labour in daily business affairs (Alamgir and Banerjee, 2019). The leadership has to be considered an effective strategy to avoid the consumer boycott from the business engagement of the western fashion brands to continue the business operation with positive earnings. In response to the Covid-19 crisis, the International Labour Organisation (ILO) has set up a working group to bring together the entire value chain of retailers, factory owners, suppliers and workers to address the employee issues during the time of Covid-19 with transparency (Refer to Evidence portfolio 6). Business organisations need to cope with growing public distrust on the issue of exploitation of Asian employees by incorporating technology, and ethics may try to avoid these inhuman practices from the value chain of the brand. It has to strongly communicate to the public about the organizational issue and ethical procurement with a revolution of price negotiation and making ethical contracts for a sustainable living standard for the employees.
It needs to ensure the minimum wage rate is aligned with safety and healthy work condition for the employee which will help to turn the risk of boycott into buycott through multi-channel communication and transparent business procurement. Other than that, the value proposition of the brand is greatly relied on in the creation of organizational value and benefit towards the employee as well as the customer may alter the public liability and market transaction of the fashion clothing industry of the western country. An equal, diverse and non-discriminatory work culture in the manufacturing unit of Asia may help in the reduction of employee exploitation. The labour issues need to be treated with empathy and motivation for meeting the growing consumer demand in the market which will help turn the consumer into a potential buycott of clothing products (Dickson and Warren, 2020).
Conclusion
From the above discussions, it has been concluded that the insatiable greed of the western fashion industry along with fierce market competition has technically aligned the organizations to unethically engage with the Asian textile manufacturers for a low pricing strategy. The brand attitude of the western fashion industry has been criticised severely which may lead to the risk of consumer boycott where the CSR activities by the brand with an exclusive, open and transparent policy and ethical procurement strategy are the effective steps to alter the consumer confidence and gradually turn the boycott into buycott.
Recommendations
The recommendations are as follows:-
- Organizational policy, ethics and procurement strategy should be altered in response to the empowerment of labour for a sustainable living standard for the employee
- It should focus on price negotiations and making short-term contracts with a close vision for enabling the Asian textile factories to empower the employee through providing standard safe and healthy working conditions and potential minimum wage
- It should incorporate technological artefacts in the vast value chain to monitor and acknowledge the mishap and ill-treatment of the labour rights and basic human rights in the textile sweatshop
References
Alamgir, F. and Banerjee, S.B., 2019. Contested compliance regimes in global production networks: Insights from the Bangladesh garment industry. Human Relations, 72(2), pp.272-297.
Chan, A., 2019. Labor relations in foreign-funded ventures, Chinese trade unions, and the prospects for collective bargaining. In Adjusting to Capitalism (pp. 122-149). Routledge.
Christ, K.L., Burritt, R.L. and Schaltegger, S., 2020. Accounting for work conditions from modern slavery to decent work. Accounting, Auditing & Accountability Journal.
Dickson, M.A. and Warren, H., 2020. A look at labor issues in the manufacturing of fashion through the perspective of human trafficking and modern-day slavery. The Dangers of Fashion: Towards Ethical and Sustainable Solutions, pp.103-124.
Evans, A., 2017. Patriarchal unions= weaker unions? Industrial relations in the Asian garment industry. Third world quarterly, 38(7), pp.1619-1638.
Lambert, R. and Chan, A., 2018. Global dance: factory regimes, Asian labour standards and corporate restructuring. In Globalization and patterns of labour resistance (pp. 72-104). Routledge.
McLaughlin, C., 2018. 14: Corporate Social Responsibility and Human Resource Management. Human resource management, p.271.
Osswald, A., 2019. Public relations as a complex decision-based practice. Public Relations Inquiry, 8(3), pp.265-279.
Peruzzini, M. and Pellicciari, M., 2017. A framework to design a human-centred adaptive manufacturing system for aging workers. Advanced Engineering Informatics, 33, pp.330-349.
Wang, Y., Xiang, D., Yang, Z. and Ma, S.S., 2019. Unraveling customer sustainable consumption behaviors in sharing economy: A socio-economic approach based on social exchange theory. Journal of cleaner production, 208, pp.869-879.
White, C.L., Nielsen, A.E. and Valentini, C., 2017. CSR research in the apparel industry: A quantitative and qualitative review of existing literature. Corporate social responsibility and environmental management, 24(5), pp.382-394.
………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..
Know more about UniqueSubmission’s other writing services:
