It’s hard to watch the Rana Plaza story play out without a sense of déjà vu.
Back in 2003, Walmart won the dubious distinction of “Sweatshop of the Year” for tolerating abusive practices by suppliers of low-priced garments in developing countries. Gap Inc. was the first American clothing retail tarred with that brush, back in the 1990s. And here they are today, the two major hold-outs against an industry-wide agreement to prevent more deadly disasters in the Bangladesh garment trade.
Have they learned nothing?
Gap in particular is hard to understand. Walmart has a history of brushing off criticism, even now when it appears Mexico has several smoking guns in its case against Walmart for corruption in restraint of trade., But Gap Inc. is another story.
The company hated getting smacked with the “sweatshop” label. The founding Fisher family and company leaders viewed Gap Inc. proudly as an American icon. Their whole brand story was about good old American values, proven with classic American clothing styles made with high quality and sold at fair prices. Unfortunately that price/quality ratio came from employing Southeast Asian women and children under conditions no American would tolerate.
When anti-sweatshop activists finally put Gap into the crosshairs of major media, Gap took the noble step of conducting its own investigation and publishing the shocking results in its first-ever Social Responsibility Report in 2004. Even hard-core activists were surprised by how bad things were, and how easy it was for a big Western brand to look the other way as layers of middlemen lied blandly about “ethical sourcing.”
A couple years later, Gap issued another Social Responsibility Report with a report card on cleaning up the abuses it had formerly tolerated. Again, the company won kudos for taking a strong stand and seeing it through.
But when the recession hit in 2008, Gap apparently decided prices and revenues mattered more than ethics and brand. The social responsibility team was cashiered and the ethical sourcing story faded from the company’s public relations. Gap is again appearing in the headlines for the wrong reasons, and making short lists for “Sweatshop of the Year” honors from non-governmental agencies.
Gap could turn things around quickly by signing on to the widely praised industry agreement brokered by the International Labor Rights Forum. Instead, it is pleading that legal technicalities issues make it impossible. (H&M and Zara don’t seem to have those issues, but never mind.)
Walmart, as usual, is simply not concerned about what others are doing; it says it has its own plan for Bangladesh. This despite the company’s reputation of issuing its “supplier code of conduct” with one hand and pricing demands that make it impossible to follow with the other.
Those of us who consulted with Gap during its socially responsible ascendency can only hope that someone at the company still remembers how to step back, take a deep breath, and swim against the tide toward the more ethical shore.
