A message from Revolver World's Managing Director, Paul Birch
Cotton has always been associated with slavery and poverty. Today that translates into bonded workers and underemployment, defined by the WHO (World Heath Organisation) as people working excessive hours but struggling to make ends meet. Pre-dating production in America's southern states of Georgia and the Carolinas, Samuel Slater had left England under dubious circumstances, establishing himself in Rhode Island as the pioneer of cotton. Cotton was America's principle industry until the Civil War, but it moved South from the upper Eastern seaboard in search of cheaper labour - and the South had slaves!
Today, in India's predominantly Christian South, people eke out a living picking cotton. The comparisons become more interesting when you factor in that deeply impoverished Christians in America's black community worked in similar conditions to today's cotton pickers and growers. Often entire families work side by side in temperatures exceeding 40 degrees celcius - to earn as little as £2 a day. In a sense the humble T-Shirt, ubiquitous in its design and perception, sums-up the plight of the cotton producers versus the High Street.
Lancashire can claim, with some legitimacy, ownership in the cotton industry, but whether Jerusalem was 'truly builded' in this United Kingdom or not, those Satanic Mills soon became dark as the money and the power were separated by America's Civil War. Although the Union had not entered the war to free slaves, it fit Lincoln's purpose to issue a Proclamation effectively emancipating black America in the (potentially unlikely) event of a Confederate defeat. Britain and France were pretty much powerless to intervene to help the South secede.
At a public meeting, held at the Free Trade Hall in Manchester on the 31st of December 1862, the cotton workers issued a proclamation supporting the Federal Presidency. Shortly after, a statue was erected in memorial of Abraham Lincoln in Manchester's Lincoln Square, Brasenose Street. This act of selflessness by the impoverished cotton mill workers of Lancashire was greeted by Lincoln as an act like no other, writing that he “deeply deplored the suffering of the working people of Manchester.” Writing this is “...an instance of sublime Christian heroism, which has not been surpassed in any age or in any country. Here were the workers of England's North West, totally reliant upon war-torn America for its raw materials; without it they were destitute, but the workers were willing to set aside their own needs and impoverishment to set free Richmond's slaves.”
This egalitarian act was typical of England's working people, ennobled by an act of altruism. Today's movement around Fairtrade has its roots in the great cotton famine of England's North West and Yorkshire's West Ridding. The principles of trade justice are enshrined in their desire for a better day to dawn!
Fairtrade - a moral imperative
Though cheap cotton is likely to go the way of cheap food, as Corporate America replenishes its oil reserves, converting cash-crops to ethanol production, it seems that in this modern age there is competition for the moral high-ground. As America has 'come off' wheat, it will surely 'come off' cotton in its twenty-four cotton producing states. It's good news for the rest of the world, as America subsidises cotton production to the tune of $4billion per annum (according to Oxfam America, that's three times the US' annual aid budget to Africa).
Cotton is not only heavily subsidised in America, but the European Union penalises cotton producers in the sub-continent with tariffs of 9.6% on all imports, effectively erecting a trade barrier to Third World development. Britain makes no provision for Fairtrade producers in the Third World. It pays lip-service to trade justice (and Parliament to its credit serves Fairtrade coffee and tea throughout the Lords and Commons) but the Third World suffers in silence whilst our country sips sublimely, giving rise to a form of hierocracy that can only be forgiven by ignorance.
Fairtrade cotton production is set at regional levels according to territory: West Africa, North Africa, South America, Egypt, subcontinent of India etc. This effectively allows the commodity to rise with market demand, but a soft landing at a price point of €0.42 per kilo in the event of downward fluctuation. The rates are set by FLO-CERT, the Fairtrade Labelling Organisation based in Germany. But is Fairtrade fair? It's a reasonable question, given Mark & Spencer are selling Fairtrade cotton T-shirts below £5 - and Sainsbury's for less than half that price at only £2.25.
The reality of cheap cotton
One may feel prompted to ask, "how can they do it at that price?" The answer? They can't! Sainsbury's and M&S are not playing by the rules, they are probably importing the raw cotton, not necessarily into the United Kingdom; they could for instance be importing cotton into Turkey and the commodity could end up in sweatshops, where the shirts are produced. After all, what's the real difference when Primark's products - already discredited for allegedly employing child labour - are actually more expensive than Sainsbury's Fairtrade T-Shirts?
The reality is that by merely certifying the cotton, the entire process is bought into disrepute. These major High Street retailers have cynically distorted the values of the Fairtrade movement - a movement with its roots in Britain and America's Civil Rights struggle, which today is greater than the Fairtrade Organisation's, with their blue and green logos on an increasing amount of High Street produce.
Traidcraft says Britain's retailers are 'fast asleep.' Many think they are dealing with manufacturers, when in point of fact they are trading with middle-men. Few retailers, even those that are circumspect, can avoid using bonded workers, underage workers at near poverty-level rates of pay. Is it really worth it? Business schools teach that there are only three generic corporate strategies: differentiation, market share leadership and sustainable competitive cost advantage. Little wonder then, given that there can be only one market leader per sector, that companies opt for competitive cost advantage. That's cost advantage, not price advantage - don't forget.
By contrast, the small cotton licensees show a full lineage of licensed suppliers in the production of cotton garments. The workaround is just to import the cotton and then do with it what you want - small cotton licensees have no option other than to turn to differentiation as a strategy. But as home labels play out against brands in the K-Marts and Walmarts, corporate America's favourite sound will remain the ringing of the tills!
By contrast, Coffee Max Havelaar in the Netherlands and Café Direct in Britain were able to establish themselves as brands long before Tesco and Waitrose introduced their home labels to rival the brands on their shelves. Regrettably, cotton has not had that luxury - the home labels disintermediated the market in less time than the fledgling brands have had opportunity to challenge. At Sainsbury's then, whilst they may have a choice of Fairtrade coffee or chocolate by brand compared to their home label, with cotton they offer no choice other than their own, proving all commodities are not equal.
Revolver World cares...
Like us, Fairtrade consumers care - and maybe it's cool to care, in an age when conscious consumers (and by that I don't mean they have survived being knocked out) are alert to excessive packaging and recyclability, anxious about food miles and actively seek out organically sourced products. They are right to want organic, although here it's the Soil Association's accreditation that has the most traction. Organic is important in clothing - not only does cotton attract a lot of subsidy (in America at least), it also attracts over 100 agrochemicals. AstraZeneca and Monsanto have a lot to answer for. Not only are these chemicals allegedly causing cancer in workers close to the harvest, there is also concern that crop yields are declining. As if that wasn't bad enough, non-organic cotton is often coloured using dyes containing heavy metals like Formaldehyde and Cadmium-B. And we wonder why in the West we are suffering from various cancers at an alarmingly increasing rate!
Whilst organic yields increase after the third year, not every country or region can switch to organic. South America is almost entirely organic in its production, whilst Cameroon for instance is unlikely to be able to switch, as organic crops need more water and Cameroon (like much of Africa) has no irrigation - we are told there is simply not enough water. Part of the challenge is the language used by media, politicians and government agencies. The overdeployment into the moral message utilises previously inert terms such as 'strategy', 'sustainability' and 'community'. It does so with a cynical box-ticking attitude that is undermining the effective debate. The use of key words in polite conversation are indicators that we are 'switched on' to modern ideas, but they fail to communicate effective meaning and they sum up a society which is at war with itself over a number of social issues and values. Is there a dawn of a new age? FLO-CERT GmbH promises that cotton garments will move to full certification - perhaps then we can be convinced that when it says Fairtrade, we can be sure the entire channel is cool and cares.
Coffee and clothing with a conscience from a little company with big ideas!
