Forced labour in Malaysia's garment factories? Child labour in the Saigon apparel industry?
Both claims have recently been made by reputable governments. Neither has been seriously denied. Yet both the clothing industry in both Malaysia and Vietnam is suffering from serious labour shortages – circumstances in which common sense would indicate workers would be able to command their own wages, and factories would be fighting each other to offer workers the best deals.
Well, it transpires, things don't quite work that way. For reasons that mean Western buyers have to be particularly vigilant in ensuring factories any garments they do have made in places with a labour shortage really are ensuring workers are properly treated
Since lots of buyers have been to Malaysia and Vietnam, but just about none have seen even a hint of unacceptable labour practices, it might be worth repeating why we know what's going on in the two countries.
We know about forced labour in Malaysia because a US Department of Labor investigation has uncovered it . It hasn't uncovered Uzbekistan-style forcible shipping of workers into cotton fields, or the use of prisoners. What it's uncovered is the lack of human rights among foreign workers imported into Malaysia by brokers, or gang-masters as we call them in Britain. And we know that the reason gangs of foreigners (mostly Vietnamese and Bangladeshis) are imported is the serious shortage of people in Malaysia prepared to work in garment factories for the wages on offer. As in Jordan, labour shortages are solved by trucking in foreigners – often on very short contracts – and making them work under conditions locals won't accept.
Something similar's happening in Vietnam – especially in the big cities. There's no shortage of people – but the cost of living in Hanoi and Saigon means many potential workers won't move from home for garment industry jobs. So factories haven't got enough people to make the clothes ordered from them – and subcontract to much smaller factories. They can't afford to pay proper wages either – so they use children, usually under terms of indenture surprisingly similar to the schemes the US Department of Labor calls "forced labour" in Malaysia and Jordan.
Most of this slipped under major buyers' radar. There are all sorts of ways of hiding abuses of short-term foreign workers, and vetting subcontracting is notoriously difficult. The first step for buyers is to acknowledge there's a problem – and in our experience, far too few buyers are even aware the problem exists.