Sweatshop Labour and Ethical Fashion Show Co-op

Our last Co-op was an awesome exploration the Asian Floor Wage, Ethical Fashion and Sweatshop Labour.

First I had the students watch this video and we talked about the floor wage and how that would affect each country depending on costs of living.  

We then as a large group compared statistics of the Asia Floor Wage and what a Living Wage is in a variety of countries and discussed the poorest paid countries. I used these statistics.

Together we looked at this political cartoon and discussed the implications of totally boycotting sweatshop labour: 

The students then got into groups of four to create a fashion show. They brought a variety of clothing with them. I adapted this idea for our Sweatshop Fashion Show: 

Here is the document that the groups used to create the commentary for their fashion show. They were to have one model with ethically responsible clothing and one model with non-ethically responsible clothing.

Here is the main information that they used to assess their fashions. 

I think that this session helped our students to look at clothing in a different way. Hopefully, they learned more about the fashion industry and the idea of living wages and floor wages. 

They certainly learned those companies that have changed their practices over the past 10 years. They also learned about those companies who have full disclosure and who have signed either the FLA - (Fair Labour Associations) guidelines or the ETI - (Ethical Trading Initiative).