Gap did not respond to the letter that I wrote to them. However they do have an ethical policy on their website and are viewed by Labour behind the Label as putting some real effort in to cleaning up their manufacturing operations.
They are not exactly on my blacklist but I won’t go out of my way to shop at their stores as I do with other more ehtical high street fashion retailers.
These are the questions I asked them:
What percentage of the retail price of a garment goes to the worker who made it?
How do you determine how much to pay workers?
Do your workers have a contract with you and know that they can rely on a steady level of income?
Do you pay your workers in cash or through a bank; do they have the opportunity to save money in a bank account that earns interest?
About cotton: Are you able to determine the conditions and pay that workers in the cotton factories are given? How about the cotton pickers?
Does Gap have its own factories and how often does it visit them and that of its sub-contractors?
