Establishing Operational Norms for Labor Rights Standards Implementation in Low-Cost Apparel Production
Wilson College of Management, North Carolina State University, Raleigh, NC 27695, USA
*
Author to whom correspondence should be addressed.
Academic Editor: Franklin G. Mixon
Sustainability 2021, 13(21), 12120; https://doi.org/10.3390/su132112120
Received: 26 September 2021
/
Revised: 26 October 2021
/
Accepted: 28 October 2021
/
Published: 2 November 2021
(This article belongs to the Section Geography and Sustainability)
Low-cost production has driven many global apparel brands and retailers to source apparel from less developed countries. However, low-cost apparel production is often accompanied by labor rights violations. A persistent pattern of labor rights violations exists in the global apparel supply chains, including minimum wage violations, unpaid overtime, forced overtime, worker abuse, restricting workers’ unions, and many other violations. Research suggests that low-cost pressures restrict factory level resources, which often leads to labor rights violations in global apparel supply chains. To date, academics and practitioners remain unaware of the actual cost of implementing labor rights standards in factories. We sought to establish a baseline taxonomy of the fundamental cost-bearing activities required to provide a safe and ethical factory workplace. A Delphi survey was adopted to capture data from an expert group of experienced factory compliance auditors in Asian apparel production. The research provides practical insights for factory adoption of actions that can improve enforcement of multiple labor standards, as well as specific actions required to enforce unique requirements that arose in our analysis.
View Full-Text
Keywords:
apparel; production; labor rights standards; Delphi; minimum cost; safe factory
This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited
MDPI and ACS Style
Hasan, R.; Moore, M.; Handfield, R. Establishing Operational Norms for Labor Rights Standards Implementation in Low-Cost Apparel Production. Sustainability 2021, 13, 12120. https://doi.org/10.3390/su132112120
AMA Style
Hasan R, Moore M, Handfield R. Establishing Operational Norms for Labor Rights Standards Implementation in Low-Cost Apparel Production. Sustainability. 2021; 13(21):12120. https://doi.org/10.3390/su132112120
Chicago/Turabian StyleHasan, Rejaul, Marguerite Moore, and Robert Handfield. 2021. "Establishing Operational Norms for Labor Rights Standards Implementation in Low-Cost Apparel Production" Sustainability 13, no. 21: 12120. https://doi.org/10.3390/su132112120
Find Other Styles
Note that from the first issue of 2016, MDPI journals use article numbers instead of page numbers. See further details here.
