The school holidays have only just begun, but the battle for the cheapest school uniform prices is already well underway. Aldi kicked off with a £4 full uniform including two polo shirts, a skirt or pair of trousers and a jumper, then Lidl undercut with the same offer for £3.75, only for Aldi to then cut their original price to £3.69. Morrisons, in an attempt to persuade parents that their school uniform range (with items starting from just £2) is still good quality, have now offered a 200 day no quibbles return scheme.
Where will this supermarket price war end? A full school kit for a quid in Poundstretcher?
Discussing this last week with Kaye Adams on BBC Radio Scotland, I wondered about the value we are prepared to invest in our own children as well as the value we put on the hard work of cotton farmers and factory workers if we expect to be able to buy school uniform for the same price as a pint of beer. Surely, even for people on a tight budget with children shooting up faster than runner beans, our kids are worth more than that? And if you are a cotton farmer eking out a living in India or Senegal and struggling below the poverty line, or a garment factory worker in Bangladesh scraping 23p an hour for your labour, it may come at the cost of not being able to send your own kids to school at all. Or, equally devastating for a parent, having to choose which one can go, and which must stay at home.
While there isn’t an exact correlation between the prices we pay and the prices paid to farmers and workers – an expensive designer item could still be made in a sweatshop, while supermarkets are almost certainly loss leading in the uniform price wars – the overall trend is still likely to be damaging. An increasing public expectation of such low prices is surely going to act as an ongoing barrier to companies putting enough value into a supply chain in the first place to enable the people who make our school uniforms to trade and work themselves out of poverty.
It makes responsibly and sustainably produced goods, like the £7.50 Fairtrade cotton polo shirts on offer from companies like KoolSkools, look expensive, when in fact that’s pretty good value if it lasts your child the best part of a school year. In the past we used to buy clothes which we expected to last a season, whereas now, the trend towards fast, cheap fashion means that clothes have become much more disposable. In the 1960s the global price of cotton was $3 compared with $1.73 in 2014.
So what should we do? Well consumers can start by checking whether the company offering the bargain school wear has a credible ethical sourcing programme. Many firms have started publishing their policies on their websites so shoppers can check, because as the Fashion Revolution campaign has shown people are increasingly becoming aware of unsafe conditions and low wages. Their recently published Fashion Transparency Index surveyed 40 global brands and rated how they publicly communicated about their sustainability credentials, but not all companies are willing to be so transparent. All businesses in the industry should be publishing their policies on the environment and labour standards in their supply chains.
Companies can go even further by becoming actively involved in the Ethical Trading Initiative, which seeks to improve working conditions globally. Businesses can also source Fairtrade and organic cotton and commit to Fairtrade’s new Textile Standard and Programme, designed to tackle these challenging working conditions and help improve the social and economic wellbeing of workers across the entire production chain. This is the first standard which requires businesses to ensure workers are paid living wages within a set time period and brand owners are responsible for fair and long-term purchasing practices which is essential for implementing such increases in pay. Overall, the standard aims to empower factory workers and enable them to negotiate labour conditions independently. It is an important first step towards changing textile supply chains and improving business practices.
Both initiatives can help ensure you and your customers know the small scale farmers are avoiding harmful chemicals, using rainwater irrigation and farming more sustainably, and will be being paid better prices too. And schools can help too, encouraging the sourcing of ethical sustainable school wear, sourcing items made to last and running uniform exchange or second hand schemes making it all more affordable to pass things on. And that means less throwaway cheap uniform ending in landfill too.
Come the new school year, no parent wants to send their child off in the morning knowing that the uniform they wear so proudly could have been made by farmers and workers who can’t afford adequate schooling for their own children, or put electricity into their homes so they can study at night. This is still the reality for millions of cotton farmers and garment workers across the world. And children are learning about this, looking at issues of trade justice in primary school, so let’s show them that they can make a difference to address this right now. If we are to change the reality of the millions of people struggling as cotton farmers and garment workers, let’s understand true value of a £4 school uniform, and make sure it’s not the poorest people of the world paying the price for it.
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