People say, "What can we do?"

Use your power as a consumer:

Industry listens to consumers even if governments don´t.

Toughen up pollution laws globally.

Don´t buy anything from a country with a poor human rights record. Country of origin labelling is no longer mandatory but should be reinstated. Write to your MP, MEP or elected representative asking him to lobby your government for this, ask him to reply (you are legally entitled to one if you ask for it) and tell you what actions he has taken to make this happen. Tell them you won´t vote for them next time if they don´t do anything about it.

Buy organic cotton garments wherever you can find them.

Write to your favourite brands and tell them you love their stuff, have bought loads in the past, but in a year´s time you want to know that all their cotton that is organic and their garment workers are properly paid. Check ethical trading initiative labour standards criteria below.

The Wearing Thin report recommends that companies should:

• Signal to supplier countries that enforcement of labour standards, including increased wages, will not lead to automatic re-location in search of cheaper labour
• Carry out research on the value of workers´ current wages
• Consult with local trade unions, human rights and other relevant organisations and academics to determine appropriate living wages
• Establish prices to suppliers, which reflect the cost of paying living wages
• Press for the enforcement of workers´ rights to organise and bargain collectively
• Negotiate the level of a living wage with genuine representatives of workers
• Strengthen transparency and accountability.

The report also recommends that ethical trading initiatives and campaigns should:

• Insist on the above
• Insist that companies move to improve wages that are matched with improvement in the right to organise and bargain collectively
• Stress that where sourcing is from countries or factories where unions are weak, companies have a responsibility to arrive at an adequate measure of a living wage through study and consultation, all their dyes are heavy metal free and that they no longer use chorine bleach, if they don´t, you won´t buy from them anymore
• Ensure that all their dyes should be heavy metal free and that they should no longer use chorine bleach; if they don´t, you won´t buy from them any more.

Katharine Hamnett 08.02.06

With thanks to: Mo Tomaney, Simon Ferrigno, Rebecca Earley, Greenpeace, Carbon Neutral Company, Emma Beswick, Dorothy Myers and Naomi Klein.