Images Magazine Digital Edition February 2019

www.images-magazine.com FEBRUARY 2019 images 21 There is, he explains, a free hotline for staff to report any problems, and in three of the four Bangladeshi factories used by the brand, there are anti-harassment committees; Interstoff is setting one up this year. Interstoff says it has a zero tolerance policy on harassment and abuse; a problem at the factory in September was resolved in 24 hours. The incident at the Dird factory, which Bruno doesn‘t dispute, shows that the procedures work, he says. “What‘s the option? Leave the company and let them do that again, or say to the management, ‘If you want to keep working with us then this cannot happen, never again. And this guy who was responsible for that, he should leave the company tomorrow, and then we can keep on working with you.‘ We think that this is a mature, responsible and good way of working and trying to improve conditions in this country.“ He points out that in any company, especially one with thousands of employees, problems and issues will always arise and will need to be resolved. Minimum wage Stanley/Stella has an employee at Interstoff nearly every day when its garments are being made, overseeing not only the production quality but also the social compliance. A weekly report is filed that ranges from ‘are the toilets clean?‘ to ‘were people able to leave at five when it‘s normal to leave?‘. The four Bangladeshi factories offer additional benefits, ranging from attendance and performance bonuses to free childcare and free school fees for children, says Bruno: “It‘s really one of the best factories we know.” He adds that the factory also employs A n investigation by The Guardian newspaper led to the publication of two articles on 20 January 2019 that claimed workers at the Interstoff Apparels factory in Bangladesh producing T-shirts for Stanley/Stella were paid 35p an hour and subject to verbal abuse and forced overtime. The T-shirts were produced for the Spice Girls by US crowdselling merchandise platform Represent and featured the slogan, #IWannaBeASpiceGirl. They were sold for £19.40, with £11.60 from each T-shirt sold given to Comic Relief‘s fund to help “champion equality for women“. A second article on 22 January said that at Dird, another Bangladeshi factory used by the brand, a worker was beaten up and told she would be killed if she protested against her severance pay being taken from her. She was later compensated and the HR manager involved in the incidence was sacked. Good social practices Speaking to Images , Stanley/Stella‘s sustainability manager, Bruno Van Sieleghem, is unequivocal in his support of Interstoff, calling it “a benchmark in Bangladesh“. He says, “They are doing a great job and I will stick behind them and defend them as much as I can.“ His confidence in the factory, the owner of which is reported as saying he will investigate the findings but that they are “simply not true“, is based on a number of points: its harassment and abuse procedures, its employee benefits, the Fair Wear Foundation audit (Stanley/ Stella is a FWF member), the regular presence of a Stanley/Stella employee at the factory to oversee production and social compliance, and Bruno‘s own four visits to the factory in the past two and a half years. at least 80 people with disabilities. The issue of wages is complicated, adds Bruno. The government in Bangladesh raised the minimum wage in December, but it is still seen by organisations such as the Asia Floor Wage Alliance as being well below the living wage. There is little the brand can achieve on increasing wages by itself – all the brands along with NGOs and unions need to be directly discussing pay levels with the government if change is to be made, Bruno explains. “We hope that... progressively, Bangladesh will pay more and closer to what we know living wage is.“ Complex questions When asked why Stanley/Stella doesn‘t insist that the people making its clothes are paid more, he says the reality is that this would lead to problems in the factory – there are more than 4,000 people working there, and everyone would want to work for the one “small, Belgian brand“ that pays more. “The factory would never be able to manage this,“ he says. Why, then, does Stanley/Stella stay in Bangladesh, given the brand‘s commitment to create clothes that are ‘made in a more humane, ethical and ecological way’? “They are experienced, they have lots of skill, a lot of capabilities. And because if we leave Bangladesh, it will be worse for all these people,“ Bruno says. “Eighty percent of the exports of Bangladesh are [from the] garment industry. Companies like ours, brands like ours, we need to stay there to help these people to go further in terms of social compliance.“ Read the full statements from Stanley/ Stella, Interstoff and Dird online: www.imagesmag.uk/ss-report Stanley/Stella Spice Girls charity tee investigation Images spoke to Bruno Van Sielegham, Stanley/Stella’s sustainability manager, about the controversy surrounding the factories that make the brand’s T-shirts INDUSTRY ISSUE