It took them over two months to reply, but the response from Fat Face to my letter has arrived at last and it was worth waiting for. Most of the letter is a fairly standard reply that has no doubt been ‘copied and pasted’; but I love the details they give about a factory they deal with in Bangladesh.
Here is the content of their letter:
We do not have our own factories but have suppliers with whom we raise contracts. The supplier will give us a price for a garment which will include labour, materials, transport and overheads. We do not pay the workers direct. However, we need to ensure the workers are paid fairly, as well as having good working conditions and are not exploited or abused in any way. To this end, we insist all our suppliers join SEDEX (Suppliers Ethical Data Exchange). This enables us to view the workers wages, what sort of contracts they have with management, working conditions, whether they have workers committees, and health and safety issues. Many of our suppliers have had 3rd party social audits to ensure good standards are maintained.
You mentioned your experiences in Nepal, and indeed one of our major suppliers in Bangladesh does actually have a savings scheme for their workers. They are also, I believe, the first textile company in the country to provide paternity leave to their workers. It is this type of company we like to be associated with.
We wish to make inroads into driving ethical improvements in our supply base, and it is through our membership to ETI (Ethical Trading Initiative) that we wish to achieve this.
Keep up the good work Fat Face!
