In the UK we have coined the phrase “the race to the bottom” to sum up the practice of western retailers and their foreign contractors cutting corners—seemingly at all costs—to keep margins down and profits up.
In the past month I have exposed three of the world’s major retailers: Otto-Heine, the largest online retailer in Europe, Esprit, the world’s fifth largest clothing store; and Gap Inc., one of the world’s most widely recognized fashion brands, for employing children. All three companies employed Indian contractors who displayed scant regard for the consequences of subcontracting. Next month, two more international firms, who I am presently unable to name, will join this growing hall of shame.
In India, investigating and exposing the Race to the Bottom is, by all means, a complex and dangerous process. For a start, you have to find the sweatshops. In the maze of narrow, mud-bricked lanes that form the spine of Delhi’s poorest market areas where many of America’s fashion garments are created, packs of stray dogs bark aggressively at passers-by. Outsiders are highly conspicuous. Runners and watchmen are everywhere, protecting illicit drinking dens, brothels and of course the unimaginably horrific sweatshops.
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