Eyes Wide Shut

To cross the road in any bustling city in Vietnam, I've been told, just inhale deeply, close your eyes and walk in a measured pace until you reach the opposite side.  The swarm of approaching traffic in either direction will spot and dodge you accordingly. 

This piece of pedestrian advice contravenes everything my lovely grade one teacher, Mrs Flaten taught me about street traffic.  "Never, never cross the road without first gazing to the left, right and left" she sternly warned. "And don't ever take a step until the cars have come to a stop" she followed just in case I didn't take to heart her earlier warning. 

Shutting one's eyes as a tactic to handle heavy traffic may be advisable in Vietnam but it certainly isn't recommended as a management strategy for dealing with non compliance and factories.  After five years of auditing our contract factories, we've achieved modest yet important improvements.  Some of our factories are safer and or paying their workers better.  Unfortunately, there is considerable room for improvement in terms of fully complying with local laws on work conditions or minimum wage. Auditing does result in better conditions but it doesn't lead to substantive improvements.

MEC's Ethical Sourcing program is at a cross roads.  We're at this intersection with our eyes open.  We don't believe auditing factories on their own will lead to dramatic improvements for workers as we had desired.  We need to do more and do it differently.

Achieving more and doing better are not easy.  It requires deep skills to re-engineer manufacturing processes, lot's of face time in factories to win trust and plenty of money to move things forward.  Facing this, we're looking at how to restructure our Ethical Sourcing program to make it better.  This is exciting because it'll deeper integrate the advancement of labour standards to our sourcing and business practices.

The first time I crossed the street in Saigon, it took me 20 minutes.  Not wanting to appear like an idiot tourist to the locals, I paced up and down the street pretending to window shop when as I was really waiting for a break in traffic.  That was two years ago.  Last month, I was at the same intersection and rather than pretend to shop, I caught my breath, fixed by gaze ahead and crossed the road with even strides.  Well to my surprise the speeding motorcycles and on-coming buses maneuvered around me.  Once safely on the other side I calmly exhaled and thought to myself "Mrs. Flaten, you were only half right!"

Comments

[Howie Chong]

That reminds me of my first time in Beijing!!

[Dave]

Just want to say thanks all for even having this debate. I'm just now becoming concious of some of the disparities that exist in the world and my responsibility to do my part to see things change. I've been wishing for some resource to help me find products and companies that can be relied upon to provide ethically produced goods. For the last six months or so I've been trying to avoid any and all products made somewhere that I suspect of especially human rights violations in their trade practices (basically made in china meant don't buy). The only thing I've found is that it's virtually impossible. Just wondering if anyone has any other resources to offer information on this issue? websites where I can find companies like MEC that make an effort to conform to ethical practices? I feel like the way I can create change right now is to buy in a more informed way or else not buy at all. But yeah guys it's good to know there's more people out there who do this. I was walking around the mall checking made in wherever labels wondering if I'm going crazy.

[HC]

Hi Dave

Google human rights, supply chain, sourcing or visit the below.

http://www.humanrightstools.org/

MSN at the link below tracks brands and their ethical sourcing programs
http://en.maquilasolidarity.org/

Most major US brands have ethical sourcing programs. A few Canadian ones do.

Cheers

[todd davis]

Glad to hear that MEC is committed to improving workers lives abroad. Sadly, however, here in Canada MEC continues to ignore the plight of workers in the contract cleaning industry. Why is this relevant you ask? Well for one, because MEC continues to contract the cleaning of its Toronto store to Impact Cleaning Services Ltd, a company that was recently found guilty of violating the City of Toronto’s ‘fair wage policy’ and ordered to pay in excess of $18,000 in back wages to its employees at Toronto’s Union Station (visit www.negative-impact.org to view the indictment). Unfortunately these abuses are commonplace in an industry that lacks regulation and accountability. We’ve only to look at the tragic deaths of 4 Toronto construction workers to confirm that industries like these, where there is little or no regulation, and where there is a high concentration of immigrants, are in crisis. Despite being made aware of this company’s track record, and the negative impact it has on these workers’ lives and industry standards, MEC continues to turn a blind eye. In fact, MEC has only ever commented on the issue when Toronto cleaning workers show up to protest and distribute pamphlets in front of its Toronto store, or when members generate discussion on its blog and Facebook page, otherwise MEC considers it out of sight out of mind. As a member I feel MEC has a responsibility to apply its ethical sourcing practices here at home. I applaud Mr. Chan for recognizing that when it comes to advancing human rights and labour standards there’s certainly more to be done, and that it’s not an easy thing to do. I take issue, however, with the commitment MEC has shown here in Toronto to do so. Quite simply, MEC has an easy opportunity to set an example for other property owners to follow. By terminating its contract with Impact it would send a strong message that MEC takes workers’ rights seriously, both abroad and at home. That said, its up to us the members to make sure MEC doesn’t continue to walk, as Mr. Chan so aptly puts it, with its “eyes wide shut.”