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Joe Fresh was the subject of The Fifth Estate report airing this past week on CBC.
They interviewed a young woman, Akter, “ … one of four million workers (around 65 per cent women) employed in a clothing factory in Bangladesh. She moved 300 kilometres from her family village to earn about $150 a month making pants for Joe Fresh, the Canadian fast fashion giant owned by Loblaw.” Akter is among the poorest in a poverty-ridden economy that exploits its own people, especially women.
Our never-ending consumption of retail goods depends on the exploitation of the poor and desperate in other countries. As noted by one factory owner, “ … the buyers from North American chains demand ever-lower prices each year.”
When a manufacturer who attempts to provide living wages, safe work space, and employee job security cannot meet those prices, they go out of business. The buyers move to other suppliers who are less concerned about employee well-being. This is endemic in our never-ending pursuit of ever-greater quarterly returns, no matter the consequences. And we are all players in this race to the bottom.
Many Canadians are now worried about losing a single paycheque and ending up homeless, or worse. We are in debt to our eyebrows, despite the supposed benefits of outsourcing and reduced costs to sellers. Hidden fees, charges, and add-ons are relentless. Product quality quietly erodes.
When the costs to do business go down, one would expect prices to follow. Instead they go up. When COVID came, we were hit with ‘supply chain’ problems resulting in higher prices and shortages of goods. COVID is in the rearview mirror now, supply chains are in place, yet the prices have not gone down, and profits are at record levels.
We can see this spiralling drive for margins in many industries — locally with the aggregate suppliers — and we seem unable to address the moral implications of our lifestyle. Frankly, it is how we have dealt with resources, acquisition, and consumption throughout human history. Wars and famine usually follow. And we are indignant in our surprise when exploited populations rise up in defiance.
The report from CBC should open our eyes to the effects our demands have on poverty-ridden populations. It does not. Yet, because we are living paycheque to paycheque, many of us are also skirting with poverty. We don’t like to admit it. We blame others for our predicament, point the finger of shame, and deflect from our own fears instead of demanding our leaders deal face to face with the root causes of our dilemma — greed and capitalism.
Joe Fresh is not the only retailer with shameful practices. Walmart is notorious for driving suppliers out of business. Metro and Sobeys also press the supplier relentlessly. Oil companies regularly play roulette with pricing despite billions in public subsidies. And the consumer is drawn into an ever-tightening noose of despair. We have been well trained to continue our consumption despite all logic to the contrary.
Exercise your right as a buyer. Treat the giant retailers the way they treat their suppliers. Pick your retailer and boycott their product until they must make changes or go out of business. Elect representatives who are not in the pockets of big business — if you can.
Those are two solutions. But, to do that we have to accept adjustment to our daily lives and our perception of what we expect from leaders. We have to recognize that pointing the finger of shame at the poor or desperate is exactly what we’ve been trained to do. We must redirect its gaze to those who deserve it.
Will we? Can we? Or do we switch channels to the hockey game and pretend things are just fine?
Dennis Rizzo
Orillia
