‘The True Cost’ – English Transcript

                                                          

 

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[00:01:12:110]  (narrator) This is a story about clothing.

 

[00:01:14:200]  It's about the clothes we wear,

 

[00:01:17:010]  the people who make these clothes,

 

[00:01:19:010]  and the impact that it's having on our world.

 

[00:01:24:190]  It's a story about greed and fear,

 

[00:01:27:140]  power and poverty.

 

[00:01:30:110]  It's complex, as it extends all the way around the world.

 

[00:01:34:070]  But it's also simple,

 

[00:01:35:230]  revealing just how connected we are to the many hearts and hands

 

[00:01:39:120]  behind our clothes.

 

[00:01:46:120]  I came into this story with no background in fashion at all,

 

[00:01:49:160]  beginning with nothing more than a few simple questions.

 

[00:01:52:210]  What I've discovered,

 

[00:01:54:080]  has forever changed the way I think about the things I wear,

 

[00:01:57:140]  and my hope is that it might just do the same for you.

 

[00:02:14:210]  (narrator) Maybe just start and say your name

 

[00:02:17:060]  and talk about how this kind of began.

 

[00:02:20:060]  My name is Lucy Siegle.

 

[00:02:21:180]  I am a journalist and broadcaster based in the UK,

 

[00:02:25:070]  and I have been obsessed, consumed

 

[00:02:29:010]  with the environmental and social impacts of the fashion industry

 

[00:02:33:170]  for about a decade.

 

[00:02:35:190]  (woman, Italian accent) Well, I love everything about clothes.

 

[00:02:38:060]  I love the poetry, I love the fabric,

 

[00:02:41:040]  I love the colors, I love the textures,

 

[00:02:43:060]  I love the way that they make you feel.

 

[00:02:45:180]  They are our chosen skin.

 

[00:02:49:010]  Well I had the classic massive closet,

 

[00:02:53:110]  clothes everywhere,

 

[00:02:55:020]  bags constantly coming into my house,

 

[00:02:58:020]  every day, every other day with some other item in

 

[00:03:00:180]  and never had anything to wear.

 

[00:03:02:050]  I could never put together a coherent outfit.

 

[00:03:08:140]  (Orsola de Castro) We communicate who we are

 

[00:03:10:070]  to a certain extent through clothing.

 

[00:03:12:040]  And this is, this is again, throughout history.

 

[00:03:14:220]  You have the trends at court,

 

[00:03:16:230]  and Marie Antoinette making these huge hats.

 

[00:03:20:060]  It's always been our personal communication in many ways.

 

[00:03:23:240]  That's what interests me,

 

[00:03:26:000]  that it is fundamentally a part of what we wish to communicate

 

[00:03:30:170]  about ourselves.

 

[00:03:38:050]  (Lucy) We used to have a system, a fashion system

 

[00:03:40:170]  where people would go to the shows,

 

[00:03:42:210]  so they would do spring, summer, autumn, winter,

 

[00:03:45:130]  and those kind of ran like clockwork for very many years.

 

[00:03:48:110]  "Okay, rip that up, throw it out the window."

 

[00:03:50:230]  That has absolutely nothing to do with the fashion industry today.

 

[00:03:54:160]  It has been re-invented.

 

[00:03:57:020]  (Orsola) The shift is moving ruthlessly

 

[00:04:01:060]  towards a way of producing

 

[00:04:04:190]  which only really looks after

 

[00:04:09:150]  big business interest.

 

[00:04:12:040]  ♪ (patriotic music) ♪

 

[00:04:13:080]  (narrator) Growing up, I never gave much thought

 

[00:04:15:060]  to anything other than the price of the clothes that I bought,

 

[00:04:18:010]  usually making choices based on the style or a good deal.

 

[00:04:22:000]  Looking back, I learned that for a long time

 

[00:04:24:060]  most of our clothing was actually made right here in America.

 

[00:04:27:140]  As recently as the 1960s, we were still making 95% of our clothes.

 

[00:04:32:100]  Today, we only make about 3%

 

[00:04:34:220]  and the other 97% is outsourced

 

[00:04:36:230]  to developing countries around the world.

 

[00:04:44:160]  (man) I've been in the business for over nine years now.

 

[00:04:47:120]  In terms of scale, we've got about 25,000 people

 

[00:04:50:010]  just on garment manufacturing side.

 

[00:04:51:240]  We produce one in six dress-shirts sold in the US.

 

[00:04:57:180]  If you actually go to a store,

 

[00:04:59:100]  and you benchmark the price of a garment over the last 20 years,

 

[00:05:03:180]  you will find that there's actually a deflation of the product,

 

[00:05:06:230]  i.e., the price has gone down over time.

 

[00:05:08:230]  Now, has our cost gone down? Absolutely not.

 

[00:05:11:180]  Our cost has gone up.

 

[00:05:14:050]  (narrator) More production we've outsourced,

 

[00:05:16:010]  the cheaper prices have become on the clothing we buy.

 

[00:05:18:200]  making way for a whole new model, known as "Fast Fashion,"

 

[00:05:22:140]  almost overnight, transforming the way clothing is bought and sold.

 

[00:05:27:070]  (female reporter) The newest H&M store on 5th Avenue in Manhattan

 

[00:05:30:060]  is the company's largest ever,

 

[00:05:32:000]  and just one of many new stores it's planning around the country.

 

[00:05:35:010]  (male reporter) It's all part of a high street revolution,

 

[00:05:37:190]  Fast Fashion.

 

[00:05:38:190]  And instead of two seasons a year,

 

[00:05:40:090]  we practically have 52 seasons a year.

 

[00:05:43:010]  So we have something new coming in every week.

 

[00:05:45:120]  And Fast Fashion has created this,

 

[00:05:48:020]  so that it can essentially shift more products.

 

[00:05:50:240]  ♪ (upbeat music) ♪

 

[00:05:59:220]  (women shouting) We love TOPSHOP!

 

[00:06:02:050]  (reporter) You can get this fringe metallic skirt $39 at Joe Fresh,

 

[00:06:05:190]  a brand new store in town.

 

[00:06:07:050]  With price tags that might look a little bit more appealing

 

[00:06:09:150]  to budget-conscious shoppers.

 

[00:06:11:030]  (reporter) American consumers,

 

[00:06:12:070]  they really grasped the fashion part of H&M

 

[00:06:15:120]  and we know from before that American consumers

 

[00:06:17:210]  are very value-oriented.

 

[00:06:19:070]  If you match these two together, with fashion and value,

 

[00:06:22:010]  then you have a recipe.

 

[00:06:23:060]  (female reporter) One Japanese clothing retailer is making

 

[00:06:25:240]  a fast and furious mark here in the US.

 

[00:06:29:000]  The price has dropped.

 

[00:06:30:160]  The way of making that product has completely, completely changed.

 

[00:06:35:000]  And you have to ask yourself at some point,

 

[00:06:37:070]  "Where does it end?"

 

[00:06:38:190]  The global marketplace, is some place

 

[00:06:40:230]  where we export work to have happen

 

[00:06:43:150]  in whatever conditions we want,

 

[00:06:45:190]  and then the products come back to me,

 

[00:06:47:110]  cheap enough to throw away without thinking about it.

 

[00:06:53:080]  (John Hilary) Globalized production basically means

 

[00:06:55:210]  that all of the making of goods

 

[00:06:57:160]  has been outsourced to low cost economies,

 

[00:07:00:230]  particularly where wages are very low, and kept low.

 

[00:07:04:150]  And what that means is that those at the top of the value chain,

 

[00:07:08:140]  they get to choose where the products are being made,

 

[00:07:11:140]  and they get to switch if, for example, one factory says,

 

[00:07:15:050]  "We can't make it that cheap anymore."

 

[00:07:17:040]  The brand will say, "Well, we're not going to come to you anymore.

 

[00:07:19:190]  We're going to switch to another place which is cheaper."

 

[00:07:31:050]  (man, Bengali accent) In the West, they're using "everyday low price."

 

[00:07:34:140]  So every day, they're hampering me

 

[00:07:36:180]  and I'm hampering my workers, this is how it is.

 

[00:07:39:150]  They are competing, the stores are competing in there.

 

[00:07:41:180]  When the stores are coming to us for an order and negotiating,

 

[00:07:45:110]  they're telling us, "Look, that particular store

 

[00:07:47:190]  is selling this shirt for $5,

 

[00:07:50:180]  so I need to sell it at $4.

 

[00:07:53:120]  So you better squeeze your price."

 

[00:07:55:040]  So we are squeezing.

 

[00:07:56:060]  Then another store is comes in saying,

 

[00:07:57:190]  "Hey, they're selling it at $4?

 

[00:07:59:240]  So the target price is $3; If you can make that $3,

 

[00:08:02:130]  you're getting business, otherwise you are not getting."

 

[00:08:05:030]  Because we want that business so badly,

 

[00:08:07:170]  and we don't have other options, okay.

 

[00:08:10:160]  Every time we are trying to survive, actually.

 

[00:08:14:090]  (Roger Lee) Ultimately, something's going to give.

 

[00:08:16:090]  Either the price of the product has to go up

 

[00:08:18:150]  or manufacturers have to shut down,

 

[00:08:22:010]  or cut corners to make it work.

 

[00:08:24:130]  (narrator) Cutting corners and disregarding safety measures

 

[00:08:26:230]  had become an accepted part of doing business in this new model,

 

[00:08:30:060]  until an early morning in April,

 

[00:08:32:010]  when an event, just outside of Dhaka, Bangladesh

 

[00:08:34:140]  brought a hidden side of fashion to front page news.

 

[00:08:37:110]  (reporter) State media in Bangladesh say

 

[00:08:39:050]  an eight-story building has collapsed near the capital of Dhaka,

 

[00:08:43:050]  killing more than 70 people.

 

[00:08:45:020]  (sounds of chaos)

 

[00:08:51:070]  (woman crying and speaking in Bengali language)

 

[00:08:56:210]  Rescue workers are racing against time,

 

[00:08:59:140]  searching through the rubble, trying to find

 

[00:09:02:040]  as many survivors as they can.

 

[00:09:04:140]  (male reporter) Hundreds are dead,

 

[00:09:05:230]  hundreds more might still be buried alive,

 

[00:09:08:050]  after officials in Bangladesh say

 

[00:09:09:200]  factory owners ignored an order to evacuate.

 

[00:09:12:200]  (male reporter) Some 400 dead, hundreds still believed to be missing.

 

[00:09:17:020]  Garment workers in Bangladesh paying the price for cheap clothing.

 

[00:09:21:100]  (female reporter) A huge crowd has gathered near the building site,

 

[00:09:24:070]  many of them family members looking for loved ones,

 

[00:09:27:150]  and they say they can still hear people screaming

 

[00:09:30:180]  from underneath the rubble, crying out for help.

 

[00:09:34:000]  Many are simply losing hope.

 

[00:09:38:050]  From where I was working

 

[00:09:40:050]  I moved close to the stairs.

 

[00:09:44:040]  As I reached them

 

[00:09:46:000]  the buildling collapsed and both my legs got trapped.

 

[00:09:50:200]  The side walls fell on my legs.

 

[00:09:55:170]  I realized that I could not get my legs out, I gave up.

 

[00:10:01:030]  Hundreds of thoughts came into my mind.

 

[00:10:06:200]  I couldn't even cry.

 

[00:10:11:150]  (Lucy) Anybody who, like me,

 

[00:10:14:150]  had written about problems in the supply chain,

 

[00:10:18:160]  particularly for Fast Fashion,

 

[00:10:20:150]  and tried to articulate

 

[00:10:22:200]  how the risk was being carried

 

[00:10:26:130]  by those who are most vulnerable and the worst paid.

 

[00:10:31:090]  You try to articulate that, but you could never have envisaged

 

[00:10:34:180]  that there would be such a catastrophic illustration

 

[00:10:37:230]  of what you were trying to say.

 

[00:10:40:060]  And Rana Plaza to me was like some horror story.

 

[00:10:44:220]  (female reporter) Two weeks after the catastrophe,

 

[00:10:46:210]  and the death toll now stands at a staggering 931,

 

[00:10:51:070]  making it the worst garment-industry disaster in history.

 

[00:10:55:040]  I think one of the most profoundly impressing things

 

[00:10:59:090]  about the Rana Plaza disaster was that news

 

[00:11:03:090]  that the workers had already pointed out to the management

 

[00:11:06:220]  the cracks in the building.

 

[00:11:08:230]  They'd already pointed out

 

[00:11:10:110]  that the building was structurally unsafe,

 

[00:11:13:090]  and yet they'd been forced back in.

 

[00:11:15:090]  (female reporter) Many survivors are asking

 

[00:11:17:010]  how they could have been forced to return to work

 

[00:11:19:130]  when management already was aware of the cracks in the building,

 

[00:11:23:020]  and workers' concerns on the very day of the collapse.

 

[00:11:26:080]  A lot of clothes in American stores are made in Bangladesh

 

[00:11:30:010]  by workers who earn about $2 a day.

 

[00:11:33:030]  Last month there, a garment factory collapsed,

 

[00:11:36:040]  killing more than 1,000,

 

[00:11:38:090]  and a few months before that, a factory fire killed more than 100.

 

[00:11:43:200]  (female reporter) And as bodies are being pulled out of the rubble,

 

[00:11:46:120]  another factory in Bangladesh caught fire early this morning,

 

[00:11:49:120]  killing eight more people.

 

[00:11:52:000]  (narrator) As story after story of clothing factory disasters

 

[00:11:54:120]  kept filling the news,

 

[00:11:55:190]  it was now the case that three of the four worst tragedies

 

[00:11:59:000]  in the history of fashion had all happened in the last year.

 

[00:12:03:080]  As the death toll rose, so did the profits generated.

 

[00:12:06:120]  The year following the disaster at Rana Plaza,

 

[00:12:08:210]  was the industry's most profitable of all time.

 

[00:12:12:100]  The global fashion industry

 

[00:12:13:190]  is now an almost three trillion dollar annual industry.

 

[00:12:17:060]  (male reporter) Bangladesh is now the second largest

 

[00:12:19:090]  apparel exporter, after China.

 

[00:12:22:010]  How? Well, unlike some of its competitors,

 

[00:12:24:210]  Bangladeshi manufacturing remains dirt cheap,

 

[00:12:28:010]  and unions have limited power.

 

[00:12:30:120]  The country cornered the absolute bottom of the value chain.

 

[00:12:35:130]  Those 1000 poor girls, lost their lives

 

[00:12:40:010]  because everybody didn't bother, didn't give a damn shit.

 

[00:12:45:070]  They just wanted the cheap price and the good profit.

 

[00:12:48:060]  It shouldn't be like that.

 

[00:12:49:180]  Everybody should take the responsibility for those kids.

 

[00:12:58:010]  That's how it is.

 

[00:13:00:230]  There might be more coming.

 

[00:13:02:120]  Sorry, but it's not only the price pressure,

 

[00:13:06:210]  it is something...

 

[00:13:08:050]  ignoring other people's lives.

 

[00:13:10:020]  It's not... it shouldn't... it's not right!

 

[00:13:13:090]  It's the 21st century!

 

[00:13:15:140]  It's a global world we are living in

 

[00:13:17:060]  and we just ignore other people's lives?

 

[00:13:20:050]  How come?

 

[00:13:21:100]  This enormous, rapacious industry

 

[00:13:25:120]  that is generating so much profit

 

[00:13:27:230]  for a handful of people,

 

[00:13:30:050]  why is it that it is unable

 

[00:13:32:190]  to support millions of its workers properly?

 

[00:13:36:120]  Why is it that it is not able to guarantee their safety?

 

[00:13:40:190]  We're talking about essential human rights.

 

[00:13:42:210]  Why is it unable to guarantee that

 

[00:13:44:230]  whilst generating these tremendous profits?

 

[00:13:48:020]  Is it because it doesn't work properly?

 

[00:13:50:040]  That is my question.

 

[00:13:53:070]  (narrator) Lucy's question sounds like the obvious one.

 

[00:13:55:150]  But instead of answering it, everywhere I looked, I found people

 

[00:13:58:160]  who were constantly justifying the cost

 

[00:14:00:230]  because of the economic benefits being generated.

 

[00:14:03:170]  So this low-wage manufacturing, or so called “sweatshops”,

 

[00:14:07:220]  they’re not just the least bad option workers have today,

 

[00:14:10:180]  they’re part of a process that raises living standards

 

[00:14:13:220]  and leads to higher wages and better working conditions over time.

 

[00:14:17:110]  Your proximate causes of development are physical capital, technology

 

[00:14:22:080]  and human capital or skills of the workers.

 

[00:14:24:100]  When sweatshops come to these countries,

 

[00:14:26:010]  they bring all three of those to these workers

 

[00:14:28:180]  and start getting that process going.

 

[00:14:31:010]  Is it possible that sweatshops are actually good?

 

[00:14:34:130]  Yes, horrible, awful sweatshops.

 

[00:14:36:140]  The word itself “sweatshop,”

 

[00:14:38:090]  it evokes terrible images of poor people and children,

 

[00:14:41:100]  suffering in third world countries, slaving away in awful conditions

 

[00:14:45:060]  to make products for us selfish Americans.

 

[00:14:48:060]  And thank you. What?

 

[00:14:50:060]  Does it bother me that people are working in a factory,

 

[00:14:54:050]  making clothes for Americans,

 

[00:14:57:210]  or for Europeans?

 

[00:14:59:240]  or that they're...that’s how they’re spending their lives?

 

[00:15:03:200]  Is that what you’re kind of asking me?

 

[00:15:05:190]  (narrator) Yeah, sure.

 

[00:15:09:060]  No. I mean, they’re doing a job.

 

[00:15:13:040]  There are a lot worse things that they can be doing.

 

[00:15:15:120]  It is live television, and I will ask you:

 

[00:15:17:160]  define sweatshops.

 

[00:15:19:030]  I think we have to be very clear

 

[00:15:20:110]  what we’re talking about from the outset.

 

[00:15:22:060]  So we’re talking about places with very poor working conditions

 

[00:15:25:070]  as us normal Americans would experience it,

 

[00:15:27:180]  very low wages by our standard, maybe children working places

 

[00:15:31:060]  that might not obey local labor laws,

 

[00:15:33:040]  but there are key characteristics of the type of the ones

 

[00:15:35:120]  I want to talk to you about tonight, Kennedy,

 

[00:15:37:090]  and that’s they're places where people choose to work,

 

[00:15:40:050]  admittedly from a bad set of other options.

 

[00:15:43:040]  Well I mean there’s nothing intrinsically dangerous

 

[00:15:45:070]  with sewing clothes.

 

[00:15:46:190]  (chuckling) So we’re kind of starting out

 

[00:15:48:190]  with a relatively safe industry.

 

[00:15:52:060]  It’s not like coal mining, or natural gas mining,

 

[00:15:55:070]  or a lot of things that you could-- that are much more dangerous.

 

[00:15:58:180]  So sweatshop jobs look like horrible working conditions and wages

 

[00:16:03:000]  to anybody in the West who’s wealthy enough

 

[00:16:05:110]  to own a TV and watch your video.

 

[00:16:08:020]  But we have to keep in mind that the alternatives available

 

[00:16:10:210]  for these workers aren’t our own alternatives,

 

[00:16:13:050]  they’re much worse than our alternatives,

 

[00:16:15:080]  and they’re usually much worse

 

[00:16:16:190]  than the factory job that the worker has.

 

[00:16:19:180]  (narrator) Low wages, unsafe conditions, and factory disasters

 

[00:16:23:190]  are all excused because of the needed jobs they create

 

[00:16:26:110]  for people with no alternatives.

 

[00:16:29:030]  This story has become the narrative,

 

[00:16:31:060]  used to explain the way the fashion industry now operates

 

[00:16:34:060]  all over the world.

 

[00:16:35:160]  (narrator) But there are those who believe

 

[00:16:37:090]  that there must be a better way

 

[00:16:39:030]  of making and selling clothing

 

[00:16:40:140]  that does generate economic growth,

 

[00:16:42:160]  but without taking such an enormous toll.

 

[00:16:45:140]  (woman) So we don’t know yet

 

[00:16:47:210]  how long this embroidery is taking.

 

[00:16:49:190]  Do you think you can ask Santo to just roughly...

 

[00:16:53:000]  how long that whole panel is taking?

 

[00:16:55:120]  Because I guess we’ll see it later on the FAB press breakdown,

 

[00:16:57:240]  but it will be great to know, wouldn’t it?

 

[00:16:59:230]  So I’m Safia Minney, I’m founder and CEO of People Tree,

 

[00:17:04:010]  and People Tree is a Fair Trade fashion brand

 

[00:17:06:160]  that started over 20 years ago in Japan.

 

[00:17:09:200]  You were worried that we had a bit too much navy.

 

[00:17:11:220]  What are you feeling now?

 

[00:17:12:220]  Because we did put more black in to SS14

 

[00:17:15:060]  and it has worked really, really well

 

[00:17:17:140]  with Orla's designer collaboration.

 

[00:17:21:210]  Have we got enough black prints in the collection?

 

[00:17:25:030]  Well we've lost that abstract dust print, this one here,

 

[00:17:30:000]  in the black, but I think this pink, we really---

 

[00:17:33:050]  I think it's one of those prints

 

[00:17:34:120]  that everyone's a bit nervous of but actually will do well.

 

[00:17:38:120]  (Safia) I think most fashion brands

 

[00:17:40:140]  start with a concept of a collection or a look.

 

[00:17:45:010]  They don't tend to think

 

[00:17:48:200]  who is going to make the product?

 

[00:17:50:060]  and how can I ensure that the producers,

 

[00:17:54:090]  or suppliers are going to eat?

 

[00:17:58:040]  So what we're trying to do at People Tree

 

[00:18:00:010]  is really start with the skills that we have

 

[00:18:03:040]  at each producer group, and then design the collection up,

 

[00:18:06:120]  whilst also looking at the integrity of the collection

 

[00:18:09:140]  in its aesthetic.

 

[00:18:12:020]  I worked originally with freelance designers

 

[00:18:15:000]  and went into Bangladesh, Zimbabwe, India, Nepal, the Philippines,

 

[00:18:19:050]  and bit by bit, we put together an amazing network

 

[00:18:23:010]  of like-minded Fair Trade organizations

 

[00:18:26:060]  that put women's development,

 

[00:18:29:040]  the workers' social development and environment

 

[00:18:31:150]  absolutely essential to everything they do.

 

[00:18:39:180]  (Safia) One...two...three

 

[00:18:41:120]  Happy World Fair Trade Day!

 

[00:18:44:230]  (people cheering)

 

[00:18:48:220]  (in Japanese) Today is the 15th anniversary

 

[00:18:53:070]  of World Fair Trade

 

[00:18:55:150]  We organize this kind of event

 

[00:18:59:100]  in over 60 countries

 

[00:19:01:230]  as a Fair Trade movement,

 

[00:19:05:060]  and 10 to 60 organizations

 

[00:19:07:200]  per country are involved in it.

 

[00:19:11:010]  Today, just like what we are doing here,

 

[00:19:15:020]  fashion shows and seminars are being held

 

[00:19:19:120]  in over 3,000 places all over the world.

 

[00:19:24:120]  ♪ (classical music) ♪

 

[00:19:38:040]  (clapping)

 

[00:19:51:070]  Good job! It was so... really, really great!

 

[00:20:00:090]  (people conversing in Japanese)

 

[00:20:04:220]  (in Japanese) Could you turn your body to me a bit more?

 

[00:20:11:120]  That's beautiful.

 

[00:20:13:010]  (Safia) Fair Trade is a citizen's response

 

[00:20:15:140]  to correcting the social injustice

 

[00:20:17:120]  in a international trading system that is largely dysfunctional,

 

[00:20:21:010]  where workers and farmers

 

[00:20:24:010]  are not paid a living wage,

 

[00:20:26:200]  and where the environment is not considered at all

 

[00:20:30:060]  to make the products that we buy every day.

 

[00:20:41:210]  (water splashing)

 

[00:20:47:130]  (in Bengali) My name is Shima.

 

[00:20:49:040]  I'm 23 years old.

 

[00:20:51:220]  When I came to Dhaka, I was twelve.

 

[00:20:57:070]  (city sounds)

 

[00:21:02:060]  (narrator) Shima is one of about 40 million

 

[00:21:03:240]  garment-factory workers in the world.

 

[00:21:06:050]  Almost four million of these workers are here in Bangladesh,

 

[00:21:09:070]  working in almost five thousand factories,

 

[00:21:11:180]  making clothing for major Western brands.

 

[00:21:16:130]  Over 85% of these workers are women.

 

[00:21:19:010]  And with a minimum wage of less than $3 a day,

 

[00:21:21:240]  they are among the lowest paid garment workers in the world.

 

[00:21:25:020]  (Shima) When I came to Dhaka, I stayed with my aunt.

 

[00:21:29:180]  When I first started working in a garment factory,

 

[00:21:32:040]  my salary was $10 a month.

 

[00:21:41:090]  (bike bells chiming)

 

[00:21:54:210]  (male interviewer) What's her name?

 

[00:21:56:070]  (Shima) My daughter's name? Nadia Akhter

 

[00:22:05:130]  I take her with me , to the factory some days

 

[00:22:07:180]  but it's terribly hot inside the factory.

 

[00:22:09:120]  And there are chemicals inside the factory

 

[00:22:13:160]  which are very harmful to children.

 

[00:22:18:120]  So I can't keep her here in Dhaka with me

 

[00:22:21:030]  because I don't have anyone to take care of her.

 

[00:22:31:080]  (man) The workers must not have any kind of distrust

 

[00:22:36:130]  on their owners.

 

[00:22:38:170]  If they have,

 

[00:22:41:030]  there will not be any kind of good working atmosphere in the factory.

 

[00:22:46:080]  They must respect, the owner, is paying us as per rule.

 

[00:22:52:230]  If they do not have this kind of confidence,

 

[00:22:55:000]  you won't get the result.

 

[00:22:57:180]  (Shima) I have formed a union at my work.

 

[00:23:00:040]  I've been the president of the union since its formation.

 

[00:23:03:190]  We submitted a list of demands and the managers received it.

 

[00:23:09:030]  After they received the list, we had an altercation with the managers.

 

[00:23:13:150]  After the altercation, the managers locked the door.

 

[00:23:18:070]  And along with them, 30-40 staffers attacked us

 

[00:23:22:200]  and beat us up.

 

[00:23:24:220]  They used chairs, sticks, scales

 

[00:23:28:140]  and things like scissors to beat us up.

 

[00:23:32:160]  Mostly they kicked and punched us

 

[00:23:36:190]  and banged our heads on the walls.

 

[00:23:40:190]  They hit us mostly

 

[00:23:43:140]  in the chest and abdomen.

 

[00:23:51:140]  (narrator) It's estimated that one in every six people alive

 

[00:23:54:060]  in the world today,

 

[00:23:55:120]  work in some part of the global fashion industry,

 

[00:23:58:140]  making it the most labor-dependent industry on earth.

 

[00:24:02:090]  Most of this work is done by people, like Shima, who have no voice

 

[00:24:06:060]  in the larger supply chain.

 

[00:24:08:130]  But to fully understand the impact

 

[00:24:10:040]  that fashion is having on our world,

 

[00:24:11:230]  we have to go back to where it all begins.

 

[00:24:15:160]  (tractor engine starting)

 

[00:24:19:180]  (woman,Texan accent) My grandparents settled out here in the 20s,

 

[00:24:22:120]  and so this is a part of my heritage.

 

[00:24:24:050]  People ask why I'm an organic cotton farmer,

 

[00:24:26:030]  it's 'cause I don't know any better.

 

[00:24:27:150]  My grandaddy was an old German farmer

 

[00:24:29:130]  that felt like we should respect the land,

 

[00:24:31:110]  we're stewards of the land,

 

[00:24:32:220]  and respect the life that's in the land.

 

[00:24:37:020]  You are actually sitting in the high plains of Texas

 

[00:24:40:100]  and there's 3.6 million acres of cotton growing in this region.

 

[00:24:44:110]  We're literally the biggest cotton patch in the world.

 

[00:24:47:100]  In just the past ten years, 80% of that is now GMO,

 

[00:24:51:070]  genetically modified cotton.

 

[00:24:53:120]  Most of it is Roundup Ready,

 

[00:24:56:040]  meaning that instead of the farmers spot-spraying weeds,

 

[00:24:59:240]  occasionally, in their field,

 

[00:25:01:100]  or hiring laborers to walk the field and eliminate the weeds,

 

[00:25:04:190]  now they're spraying whole fields.

 

[00:25:08:040]  (narrator) Cotton produces the fiber

 

[00:25:09:150]  that's responsible for most of the clothing

 

[00:25:11:080]  worn by the world today.

 

[00:25:12:240]  And as our appetite for fashion grows,

 

[00:25:14:220]  the cotton plant itself is being re-engineered to keep up.

 

[00:25:18:110]  There's just been this big drive

 

[00:25:20:050]  towards the industrialization of agriculture,

 

[00:25:22:200]  the intensification of agriculture.

 

[00:25:25:000]  So instead of the old forms of farming

 

[00:25:27:120]  which were very much in-tune with nature,

 

[00:25:30:010]  they were linked to the cycles

 

[00:25:32:030]  of the natural year, and the seasons.

 

[00:25:34:210]  What you see now is an intensification

 

[00:25:36:190]  where the land is almost reconsidered

 

[00:25:39:190]  as if it was a factory.

 

[00:25:42:100]  (man, Texan accent) What you’ve created is this general practice

 

[00:25:45:070]  of "we treat millions of acres the same."

 

[00:25:49:130]  We put a dose of chemical on it all,

 

[00:25:52:180]  and that’s when you get these big ecological effects

 

[00:25:56:150]  that nobody has a grasp of what’s really happening.

 

[00:26:00:160]  Nature tends to heal itself in small pockets.

 

[00:26:05:130]  But when you get this big, broad approach,

 

[00:26:11:020]  we really don’t know what’s going on.

 

[00:26:13:100]  For us, it’s not reducing the amount of pesticides,

 

[00:26:16:190]  and chemicals that are going on the cotton,

 

[00:26:18:110]  that’s one of the big sales, that reduces that.

 

[00:26:20:110]  Not in our area, where we are spraying

 

[00:26:23:060]  millions and millions of acres and dollars of Roundup,

 

[00:26:26:220]  across the entire South Plains.

 

[00:26:28:240]  What kind of impact is that having on our soil,

 

[00:26:31:180]  with residuals that are left at the microbacterial level?

 

[00:26:35:150]  What kind of impact is that having

 

[00:26:37:040]  on the people in our communities?

 

[00:26:39:050]  Where is the cost on that?

 

[00:26:42:020]  ♪ (music) ♪

 

[00:26:44:220]  (commercial narrator) Monsanto is proud to be the industry leader

 

[00:26:47:120]  in agricultural innovation,

 

[00:26:49:020]  because of what these agricultural advancements can do to help you

 

[00:26:52:030]  double yields for the future needs of the world.

 

[00:26:55:040]  We're dedicated to the future of agriculture,

 

[00:26:57:220]  and providing farmers with innovations

 

[00:27:00:020]  that help them produce more and conserve more,

 

[00:27:03:040]  while improving the lives of people around the world.

 

[00:27:06:090]  Together, we can face the challenges

 

[00:27:08:210]  of the next generation

 

[00:27:11:210]  and beyond.

 

[00:27:18:240]  (bustling streets)

 

[00:27:24:080]  (woman) After the wars,

 

[00:27:25:120]  where all these redundant factories

 

[00:27:27:130]  that made war chemicals, explosives, were lying around,

 

[00:27:35:040]  The Western countries thought that it would be a good idea

 

[00:27:39:050]  to market them to the third world,

 

[00:27:41:070]  after all, the same industry that makes explosives

 

[00:27:44:030]  makes nitrogen fertilizers.

 

[00:27:46:130]  And they started to push nitrogen fertilizers,

 

[00:27:49:120]  from the 50s onwards, after we became independent.

 

[00:27:53:030]  But the nitrogen fertilizers

 

[00:27:56:120]  don't do very well with native crops.

 

[00:28:00:010]  There's a problem of lodging.

 

[00:28:02:090]  So the whole system then organized itself

 

[00:28:05:100]  to redesign the plant

 

[00:28:07:100]  in order to take on more chemicals.

 

[00:28:10:060]  Bt Cotton is a cotton in which a gene has been added,

 

[00:28:14:110]  from a bacteria, to produce a toxin.

 

[00:28:17:220]  But the Bt Cotton,

 

[00:28:20:150]  which is supposed to control a pest,

 

[00:28:23:030]  has been offered because it's a way for companies to own the seed.

 

[00:28:29:120]  (narrator) By patenting these genetically modified plants,

 

[00:28:31:200]  Monsanto has become the largest seed and chemical corporation in history.

 

[00:28:36:150]  I wanted to speak with someone who'd worked with the company,

 

[00:28:39:090]  and I got word that a former managing director for India

 

[00:28:41:210]  was willing to talk.

 

[00:28:43:060]  (man) One of my close friends who was in the research division,

 

[00:28:45:210]  working on these modified crops,

 

[00:28:48:210]  he came to my hotel for a drink.

 

[00:28:52:100]  We are sitting having a drink, and after a few drinks he told me,

 

[00:28:55:100]  "Hey, Jag, they're going to change the type of business

 

[00:28:58:180]  you're doing in India."

 

[00:29:01:070]  I said, "What do you mean?"

 

[00:29:03:010]  "They're going to get into the seeds business.

 

[00:29:05:180]  And they're going to make the seed business of all crops,

 

[00:29:10:020]  so that we have a monopoly on seeds,

 

[00:29:13:100]  and every farmer has to come to us to buy seeds every time."

 

[00:29:19:000]  That rang a bell in my mind.

 

[00:29:21:180]  If a poor farmer has to go to Monsanto to buy seeds every time,

 

[00:29:26:180]  and such expensive seeds,

 

[00:29:29:150]  at the time there's no idea of Bt at all for me.

 

[00:29:32:030]  Genetically modified seed, it's not in my mind.

 

[00:29:35:120]  Even seed monopoly is something very bad.

 

[00:29:39:110]  (Vandana Shiva) So farmers get into debt when the get the seed

 

[00:29:42:000]  because of the high cost, 17,000 percent more.

 

[00:29:45:080]  They get into deeper debt because it doesn't deliver on the promise

 

[00:29:49:000]  of controlling pests, so they have to buy more pesticides.

 

[00:29:52:180]  The tragedy with chemicals, whether it's fertilizers or pesticides,

 

[00:29:56:120]  is that they are what has been called ecological narcotics:

 

[00:30:00:040]  the more you use them, the more you need to use them.

 

[00:30:02:180]  For a while, the yield of the single commodity climbs

 

[00:30:05:060]  and then it starts to decline

 

[00:30:06:130]  because you have contaminated the soil.

 

[00:30:14:230]  (engine running)

 

[00:30:17:050]  (narrator) Most of India's cotton is grown in the Punjab region,

 

[00:30:19:230]  which has quickly become the largest user of pesticides in India.

 

[00:30:25:070]  Dr. Pritpal Singh has been studying the effects

 

[00:30:27:180]  of these chemicals on human health

 

[00:30:29:120]  and his reports show dramatic rise in the number of birth defects,

 

[00:30:33:070]  cancers and mental illness here in the region.

 

[00:30:37:200]  You can go in every village

 

[00:30:39:180]  you will see that hundreds of patients are suffering with cancers.

 

[00:30:45:120]  70 to 80 kids in every village

 

[00:30:48:100]  you will find them facing

 

[00:30:50:200]  severe mental retardation and physical handicaps.

 

[00:30:53:100]  (cries and moans)

 

[00:30:57:080]  ♪ (somber music) ♪

 

[00:31:08:060]  Companies of the fertilizers, pesticides,

 

[00:31:10:070]  they are totally refusing

 

[00:31:12:130]  the aftereffects of the pesticides and fertilizers,

 

[00:31:15:080]  and this is the classical symptoms of their toxicity.

 

[00:31:20:060]  In one village, there are 60 mentally retarded kids like this boy.

 

[00:31:25:010]  So it's a very dangerous phenomenon in the Punjab.

 

[00:31:32:060]  And poor people, farmers, laborers, and small farmers

 

[00:31:36:220]  have maxed their labor means so they can't afford treatment.

 

[00:31:40:190]  Ultimately, they have accepted the death of their kids.

 

[00:31:45:140]  And they're waiting for the death of their kids,

 

[00:31:47:120]  the mother is waiting for the death of this boy.

 

[00:31:51:050]  Companies that make the GM seeds and make the chemicals

 

[00:31:55:060]  are the same companies.

 

[00:31:56:190]  And they're also the same companies that make the medicines

 

[00:31:59:130]  which they are now patenting.

 

[00:32:01:000]  So you get cancer, there are more profits.

 

[00:32:03:120]  For them it's a win, win, win, win, win.

 

[00:32:05:130]  As for nature and people, it's a lose, lose, lose, lose, lose.

 

[00:32:09:060]  It's the day those agents of these companies

 

[00:32:11:230]  come to the farmer and say,

 

[00:32:13:240]  "You owe me this much. You haven't paid back.

 

[00:32:17:000]  Now your land is my land."

 

[00:32:18:240]  That day the farmer will go into his field,

 

[00:32:22:030]  drink a bottle of pesticide,

 

[00:32:24:160]  and end his life.

 

[00:32:25:190]  And every widow I've talked to said,

 

[00:32:27:190]  "And the neighbors came and said

 

[00:32:29:040]  they first found my husband lying in the field."

 

[00:32:33:210]  (narrator) In the last 16 years,

 

[00:32:35:090]  there have been more than 250,000

 

[00:32:37:190]  recorded farmer suicides in India.

 

[00:32:41:160]  That's about one farmer every 30 minutes.

 

[00:32:44:120]  And it's the largest recorded wave of suicides in history.

 

[00:32:55:030]  (narrator) As it becomes clear, just how much of an impact

 

[00:32:57:120]  fashion is having on our world,

 

[00:32:59:060]  there's an increasing amount of research

 

[00:33:01:020]  to suggest that it's also having a growing effect on us,

 

[00:33:04:120]  the people buying these clothes.

 

[00:33:06:180]  (man) What we now know, 20 years later

 

[00:33:09:000]  and hundreds of studies later,

 

[00:33:10:220]  is that the more the people are focused

 

[00:33:12:180]  on those materialistic values,

 

[00:33:14:120]  the more that they say that money and image,

 

[00:33:17:130]  and status and possessions are important to them,

 

[00:33:21:000]  the less happy they are,

 

[00:33:22:060]  the more depressed they are, the more anxious they are.

 

[00:33:25:120]  We know that all of these kinds of psychological problems

 

[00:33:28:170]  tend to go up, as materialistic values go up.

 

[00:33:32:090]  Now, that's really at odds with the thousands of messages

 

[00:33:36:220]  that we receive every day from advertisements

 

[00:33:40:200]  suggesting that materialism and the pursuit of possessions

 

[00:33:44:110]  and owning stuff is what's going to make us happy.

 

[00:33:47:070]  It's important to understand that advertising is a species,

 

[00:33:51:050]  or a category of propaganda.

 

[00:33:53:180]  You think of propaganda as a totalitarian thing, very grim,

 

[00:33:58:170]  loudspeakers, chanting crowds and so on,

 

[00:34:02:070]  and we think of Hitler.

 

[00:34:03:150]  We always think of it as a foreign thing,

 

[00:34:06:120]  but it's actually as American as apple pie.

 

[00:34:09:120]  ♪ (slow pop music) ♪

 

[00:34:12:180]  (Tim Kasser) Well the reason that advertising works is because

 

[00:34:15:220]  the smart advertisers, at least,

 

[00:34:17:220]  are trying to tie the consumption of their product

 

[00:34:21:180]  to a message that suggests

 

[00:34:25:100]  that your needs will be satisfied

 

[00:34:27:230]  by consuming this thing.

 

[00:34:30:050]  It wants you to believe

 

[00:34:31:210]  that you'll look wonderful in that thing.

 

[00:34:34:100]  But then to put it on, and feel like,

 

[00:34:36:050]  "Nah, you look kind of fat in it, you don't look that good in it,

 

[00:34:38:180]  you're sorry you bought it, but there's another one you can buy."

 

[00:34:41:110]  ♪ (pop music) ♪

 

[00:34:49:120]  ♪ (pop music continues) ♪

 

[00:35:10:090]  (Tim) So think of all the car commercials you see that show,

 

[00:35:14:070]  "Well, I've really made it now, I'm a competent person

 

[00:35:17:090]  because I'm driving this BMW or this Audi."

 

[00:35:21:000]  Or think about all the shampoo commercials you've seen,

 

[00:35:23:180]  where the person now has beautiful flowing hair

 

[00:35:27:070]  and is loved and appreciated by the people around them.

 

[00:35:30:120]  The basic message is the same:

 

[00:35:32:130]  the way to solve the problems of your life,

 

[00:35:35:070]  we all have problems in our life,

 

[00:35:37:050]  the way to solve the problem in your life is through consumption.

 

[00:35:40:180]  Hey you guys!

 

[00:35:41:190]  Today I'm coming to you guys with a clothing haul!

 

[00:35:44:190]  I went shopping a couple of days ago and literally went insane

 

[00:35:48:120]  and bought so many things.

 

[00:35:50:120]  My spam box, I don't know, where it's literally blown up,

 

[00:35:54:010]  by you guys saying you guys wanted a haul.

 

[00:35:56:120]  So... here it is.

 

[00:35:58:100]  Okidoki, so first off, I have some things that I got from H&M

 

[00:36:02:050]  So then I went to Forever 21...

 

[00:36:04:110]  It wasn't even a question, it was just like fate, I just had to get it,

 

[00:36:07:190]  like if it could levitate towards me, it would have levitated.

 

[00:36:10:200]  I got this skirt,

 

[00:36:13:090]  bright yellow, and it was $8.50.

 

[00:36:17:090]  It's a jean button-up thing...

 

[00:36:20:160]  ...and I just loved this, I just loved it, loved it, loved it!

 

[00:36:23:120]  It's a gray knit sweater, and it has pink hearts all over it.

 

[00:36:26:080]  I loved...I love tie-dye things.

 

[00:36:28:230]  Like tie-dye things are literally the bomb.net!

 

[00:36:31:130]  It has a little yin yang sign on the front of it.

 

[00:36:34:010]  I just love these so much.

 

[00:36:35:170]  And it's just this really pretty, light blue sweater.

 

[00:36:39:040]  I don't even know if I'm going to wear this, now that I got it,

 

[00:36:41:070]  because I don't know if I like it that much.

 

[00:36:42:180]  I need to stop.

 

[00:36:50:180]  (man) I try to understand better

 

[00:36:52:060]  why people don't realize that they're becoming poorer and poorer.

 

[00:36:56:060]  And I ask myself, okay, but what has changed

 

[00:36:59:130]  in respect of when I was young?

 

[00:37:01:080]  And fashion is something that has dramatically changed.

 

[00:37:04:130]  I was able to buy one, two t-shirts,

 

[00:37:07:100]  four t-shirts, for example, a year.

 

[00:37:09:130]  Now, also my children, they used to buy,

 

[00:37:12:170]  every party, they buy a t-shirt.

 

[00:37:14:220]  And so I understood that Fast Fashion is something totally new.

 

[00:37:19:100]  If you have noticed, the price has decreased in the last years.

 

[00:37:24:020]  And it does follow the middle class disappearing.

 

[00:37:28:150]  So all the things that people really need

 

[00:37:31:140]  are very costly,

 

[00:37:33:110]  like a home, like studies, like life insurance.

 

[00:37:38:130]  On the other side, there is a source of consolation

 

[00:37:43:120]  part of their life.

 

[00:37:45:060]  They can buy a t-shirt,

 

[00:37:48:230]  two t-shirts a party, or eventually a day,

 

[00:37:53:010]  although I'm very poor and I've got lost,

 

[00:37:55:110]  I've lost all the things I really needed.

 

[00:37:57:200]  (narrator) Today we purchase over 80 billion

 

[00:37:59:180]  pieces of new clothing each year.

 

[00:38:02:030]  That's 400% more than the amount we bought just two decades ago.

 

[00:38:06:110]  The way we buy clothes has changed so much, so fast

 

[00:38:09:130]  that few people have actually stepped back

 

[00:38:11:180]  to understand the origin of this new model, or the consequence

 

[00:38:14:160]  of such an unprecedented increase in consumption.

 

[00:38:17:220]  (Mark Miller) There's an article in Printers' Ink

 

[00:38:22:020]  which is the leading advertising trade journal of its day,

 

[00:38:26:150]  by a very famous copywriter, named Earnest Elmo Calkins,

 

[00:38:30:180]  he was a grand old man of the art of writing advertising copy.

 

[00:38:35:050]  It was an article called "Consumptionism".

 

[00:38:38:170]  In that article, he says there are two kinds of products.

 

[00:38:43:200]  There are the kind that you use,

 

[00:38:47:030]  like washing machines, cars and so on,

 

[00:38:49:210]  things that you buy and use for a long time.

 

[00:38:54:090]  And then there are the things that you use up,

 

[00:38:57:060]  like chewing gum and cigarettes, other perishables.

 

[00:39:00:210]  He said consumptionism is all about getting people

 

[00:39:04:220]  to treat the things they use,

 

[00:39:07:190]  as the things they use up.

 

[00:39:10:020]  (woman) With their innovative Buy 1, Get 3 Free pricing,

 

[00:39:12:200]  a suit from Joseph A. Bank

 

[00:39:14:100]  is effectively cheaper than paper towels.

 

[00:39:17:170]  And now they come in these easy-to-use dispensers.

 

[00:39:21:200]  With four suits for the price of a modest dinner,

 

[00:39:25:010]  I can feel good about throwing them away when I'm done.

 

[00:39:31:180]  (woman) You just have to look at landfill,

 

[00:39:33:180]  and you can see in landfill

 

[00:39:35:090]  that the amount of clothes and textiles being chucked away,

 

[00:39:38:060]  has been increasing steadily over the last 10 years,

 

[00:39:41:130]  as the sort of dirty shadow of the Fast Fashion industry

 

[00:39:48:020]  (Lucy Siegle) As we get sort of closer and closer

 

[00:39:51:000]  to species degradation,

 

[00:39:52:220]  to trashing our last remaining pristine wilderness,

 

[00:39:57:050]  we seem hell-bent on producing more and more disposable stuff.

 

[00:40:00:180]  It makes no sense.

 

[00:40:02:080]  Fashion should never and can never be thought of

 

[00:40:05:130]  as a disposable product.

 

[00:40:07:200]  (Christina Dean) I think after any big change in any industry,

 

[00:40:10:070]  it takes a while to feel and smell

 

[00:40:13:190]  the dirt that comes out of something that is polluting.

 

[00:40:17:180]  So I think now there is a change

 

[00:40:20:030]  because you can't deny

 

[00:40:23:230]  that the Fast Fashion industry

 

[00:40:25:190]  is having a massive impact in developing countries.

 

[00:40:28:220]  (narrator) The average American throws away 82 pounds

 

[00:40:31:120]  of textile waste each year.

 

[00:40:33:220]  Adding up to more than 11 million tons of textile waste

 

[00:40:37:040]  from the US alone.

 

[00:40:39:010]  Most of this waste is non-biodegradable.

 

[00:40:41:150]  Meaning it sits in landfills for 200 years or more,

 

[00:40:44:140]  while releasing harmful gases into the air.

 

[00:40:47:180]  (Orsola) The sheer amount of cheap clothing,

 

[00:40:50:230]  even though people feel, perhaps somehow,

 

[00:40:55:080]  that they're offsetting by giving to charity.

 

[00:40:58:020]  The journey of a t-shirt donated to charity

 

[00:41:01:140]  is unpalatable in itself.

 

[00:41:07:040]  (woman) Pepe... It is a disease in Haiti.

 

[00:41:11:060]  Not only in Haiti, I think like in any

 

[00:41:13:030]  third world country that you're visiting.

 

[00:41:15:120]  It's a problem, it's a huge problem.

 

[00:41:18:230]  Pepe, a bunch of clothes,

 

[00:41:21:160]  most of them came from the States.

 

[00:41:25:150]  People will go and buy a box full of clothes.

 

[00:41:28:060]  They don't even know what they're buying.

 

[00:41:30:140]  Those are clothes people donate to charity,

 

[00:41:34:080]  and charity cannot sell them on their thrift store or whatever,

 

[00:41:38:150]  they pack them, ship them to those third countries

 

[00:41:42:200]  and most of them end up here.

 

[00:41:44:190]  (narrator) It turns out that only about 10%

 

[00:41:46:120]  of the clothes that we donate

 

[00:41:47:200]  actually get sold in local thrift stores.

 

[00:41:50:140]  And as we're going through our clothing faster and faster,

 

[00:41:52:210]  now more of it is being dumped into developing countries,

 

[00:41:55:200]  like Haiti.

 

[00:41:57:100]  As the amount of secondhand clothing

 

[00:41:58:210]  coming into Haiti has increased,

 

[00:42:00:220]  the local clothing industry here has disappeared.

 

[00:42:04:050]  Once a proud, local tailoring sector,

 

[00:42:06:130]  Haiti now produces mostly cheap t-shirts

 

[00:42:09:080]  for export to America.

 

[00:42:11:160]  Because, back in the day when you were working

 

[00:42:15:130]  you used to see someone come to learn to sew.

 

[00:42:19:060]  The person might come to learn, and ask me to teach them how to sew.

 

[00:42:23:000]  Then you would teach him or her.

 

[00:42:24:180]  And because they learned to sew,

 

[00:42:28:020]  you knew that they would find a job with that skill.

 

[00:42:30:120]  However, today, the person may learn how to sew

 

[00:42:34:150]  but they can't find a job or make a living doing that.

 

[00:42:41:060]  (Catherine Charlot) So I tell people stop buying things that is not good,

 

[00:42:45:140]  that is costing, like ten dollars,

 

[00:42:47:160]  you going to go on a ball, you going out today.

 

[00:42:51:110]  You just go to a store

 

[00:42:52:110]  and buy yourself a dress for ten dollars,

 

[00:42:54:060]  Because it cost just ten dollars and I can throw it away.

 

[00:42:57:080]  And tomorrow you are going to do the same thing

 

[00:42:59:060]  over and over and over again.

 

[00:43:03:060]  (narrator) As awareness of fashion's impact on our world is growing,

 

[00:43:06:010]  there are key leaders in the industry who are beginning to question

 

[00:43:08:200]  the impacts of a model built on careless production

 

[00:43:12:000]  and endless consumption.

 

[00:43:13:170]  (man) At Patagonia, we hate the word "consumers."

 

[00:43:19:080]  We've got to find a better word, we prefer "customers,"

 

[00:43:22:200]  and we prefer also customers who recognize

 

[00:43:26:120]  the impact of their consumption.

 

[00:43:28:220]  They recognize that as consumers, they're part of the problem.

 

[00:43:34:090]  We are hopeful that we can encourage our customers to join us

 

[00:43:38:240]  in really questioning consumption.

 

[00:43:41:130]  Because without a reduction in consumption,

 

[00:43:43:180]  we don't feel that we'll really collectively find a solution

 

[00:43:47:120]  to the problems we face, that are collectively, year by year,

 

[00:43:53:060]  resulting in the continued decline of the health of our planet.

 

[00:43:58:160]  (woman) I mean the fashion industry just needs to think.

 

[00:44:01:110]  It needs to just stop and sort of look at how it's been working

 

[00:44:05:080]  in a conventional way, and just question it, challenge it.

 

[00:44:09:010]  For me is as a designer,

 

[00:44:10:080]  that's the most exciting thing that I do now.

 

[00:44:13:110]  More exciting than saying, "Oh, I love this color this season,"

 

[00:44:16:030]  or "this is the silhouette, or the hemline."

 

[00:44:19:020]  For me, a way bigger challenge and excitement

 

[00:44:22:120]  is actually looking at my industry and saying, "You know what,

 

[00:44:24:220]  I'm going to try and do it in a way

 

[00:44:26:080]  that is not as harmful to the planet."

 

[00:44:30:010]  Business through advertising has pulled society along

 

[00:44:35:110]  into this belief that happiness is based on stuff,

 

[00:44:40:050]  that true happiness can only be achieved

 

[00:44:42:190]  with an annual, seasonal, weekly, daily

 

[00:44:48:060]  increase in the amount of stuff you're bringing into your life.

 

[00:44:50:180]  That we want encourage our customers

 

[00:44:53:170]  to think twice about those assumptions,

 

[00:44:56:000]  to understand where they came from.

 

[00:44:58:150]  And through that understanding, to know that we can all together,

 

[00:45:02:040]  we can change how this is done.

 

[00:45:03:140]  The customer has to know that they're in charge.

 

[00:45:06:150]  Without them, we don't have jobs.

 

[00:45:08:170]  And that is really important.

 

[00:45:10:050]  So you don't have to buy into it.

 

[00:45:12:060]  If you don't like it, you don't have to buy into it.

 

[00:45:17:030]  (birds chirping)

 

[00:45:18:000]  (Safia Minney) I love the embroidery, Shantu.

 

[00:45:23:000]  The embroidery is really nice.

 

[00:45:24:100]  Don't you think we should add the embroidery on both sides?

 

[00:45:26:180]  I think we should definitely add the embroidery here as well.

 

[00:45:30:170]  I think it looks a bit mean to have it just on the front,

 

[00:45:33:110]  so let's have it on the sides too?

 

[00:45:36:180]  It won't add much cost,

 

[00:45:38:020]  it's not so dense, is it?

 

[00:45:45:100]  (Safia) Swallows is a Fair Trade fashion business

 

[00:45:48:120]  but it's also a development society.

 

[00:45:51:070]  So it helps more than 3,000 people in this village.

 

[00:45:57:060]  I come here every four months.

 

[00:45:58:220]  We call them "production trips."

 

[00:46:00:230]  And we're working with the producers,

 

[00:46:03:110]  trying to find out what are the barriers

 

[00:46:05:140]  to making a great product and to getting it to the market.

 

[00:46:09:020]  And we're also doing Fair Trade capacity building.

 

[00:46:11:210]  So looking at what are the obstacles

 

[00:46:14:130]  to delivering more social benefit

 

[00:46:16:190]  or improving the environmental protection in these areas.

 

[00:46:21:020]  For me, this is about partnering.

 

[00:46:23:040]  This is about finding creative solutions,

 

[00:46:25:050]  together with them, with the team here,

 

[00:46:28:030]  and really listening to what their problems are

 

[00:46:30:000]  and finding a way that works, together.

 

[00:46:32:140]  (clicking sound of the loom)

 

[00:46:42:130]  I want to invite the best employee here at Swallows,

 

[00:46:47:200]  I want to invite one female representative from Swallows

 

[00:46:52:240]  to come to London in autumn or next spring.

 

[00:46:57:060]  And I would like you to think

 

[00:46:59:050]  who would be that best representative.

 

[00:47:02:120]  But I want you to know who your customers are,

 

[00:47:04:120]  and I want you to really understand the marketplace

 

[00:47:07:030]  and come back and tell all your friends.

 

[00:47:09:090]  (man translating to Bengali)

 

[00:47:32:010]  (applause)

 

[00:47:36:150]  Either, if she does it single thread, single stitch,

 

[00:47:39:120]  then maybe she needs to do more densely?

 

[00:47:42:010]  - Okay. - More concentrated?

 

[00:47:43:180]  (man translates to Bengali)

 

[00:47:57:060]  (Safia) If she continues for a bit,

 

[00:47:59:180]  we're going to go up to the sample room now, for SS15.

 

[00:48:02:190]  Can she come and show us the next one that she does?

 

[00:48:06:110]  Yeah.

 

[00:48:11:180]  (Safia) I kind of hoped that People Tree wouldn't be necessary,

 

[00:48:14:170]  and I hoped that we would have a trading system that looked after

 

[00:48:19:080]  people's rights and the environment.

 

[00:48:23:060]  But the more and more involved I got in developing,

 

[00:48:25:180]  and working closely with partners,

 

[00:48:27:090]  the more dirt and filth I discovered

 

[00:48:31:230]  about how trading practices

 

[00:48:33:180]  undermine everything that we believe in,

 

[00:48:35:140]  and everything I know most people believe and value.

 

[00:48:42:190]  I don't know, People Tree just really grew organically.

 

[00:48:45:000]  It grew from a really great collection of people

 

[00:48:48:000]  that feel passionately that there's a different way of...

 

[00:48:50:190]  of working, of living, of consuming,

 

[00:48:54:020]  of interacting with people by a humane way.

 

[00:49:00:220]  I didn't necessarily feel that there'd be a thousand shops

 

[00:49:03:070]  selling People Tree today,

 

[00:49:06:050]  and I see that there's so much more that we need to do.

 

[00:49:08:110]  So I think it's not just about creating jobs

 

[00:49:11:060]  for the 7,000 people that work for People Tree,

 

[00:49:13:120]  it's also about being a catalyst for change within the industry,

 

[00:49:16:110]  and showing, proving the model works.

 

[00:49:25:020]  (clanking metal from train tracks)

 

[00:49:29:220]  (Larhea Pepper) Yeah, when we first went organic

 

[00:49:31:200]  I think there was only two or three of us at the time,

 

[00:49:34:000]  and we formed the Texas Organic Cotton Marketing Cooperative

 

[00:49:37:050]  and the deal was they'd grow it, and I'd sell it.

 

[00:49:39:120]  So I started going to like Jacob Javits

 

[00:49:42:030]  and having this whole deal, cotton plants and everything,

 

[00:49:45:010]  and of "Yeah, we've got organic cotton,"

 

[00:49:47:080]  and people would just look at us like we were absolutely crazy.

 

[00:49:53:000]  Many times consumers become aware of...

 

[00:49:55:150]  organic milk, or they have an allergy.

 

[00:49:58:030]  And so, interestingly enough, cotton,

 

[00:50:00:160]  and what they put on their body

 

[00:50:01:220]  even though the skin's the largest organ on your body,

 

[00:50:04:130]  isn't even on their radar screen

 

[00:50:05:200]  because they're not getting the connection of,

 

[00:50:08:110]  "Oh, I eat this organic apple,

 

[00:50:10:080]  therefore I'm not directly ingesting

 

[00:50:12:220]  pesticides or chemicals, or whatever the case may be."

 

[00:50:15:230]  But they don't get that direct connection with clothing.

 

[00:50:18:130]  And so you have to start looking in that bigger community scope.

 

[00:50:21:220]  That it is about our air, it's about our world.

 

[00:50:24:010]  It's about our planet, it's about our people.

 

[00:50:26:170]  And so it is that awareness of--

 

[00:50:29:100]  You may not feel that you're having the direct impact

 

[00:50:31:190]  by buying this organic shirt.

 

[00:50:34:140]  But the impact you're having

 

[00:50:36:160]  is in the bigger picture in the world at large,

 

[00:50:38:220]  and especially in the community where the cotton's grown.

 

[00:50:42:190]  ♪ (soft music) ♪

 

[00:50:54:140]  As the hard freeze comes,

 

[00:50:56:120]  as organic farmers, we wait for that freeze

 

[00:50:58:200]  because that literally defoliates, takes the leaves off the plant,

 

[00:51:03:180]  so that when we harvest, the bolls open that are mature,

 

[00:51:07:240]  and it leaves the cotton here,

 

[00:51:09:180]  and you can see it comes out in sections.

 

[00:51:13:000]  This machine that's coming is called a Cotton Stripper.

 

[00:51:16:040]  And it's called a Cotton Stripper

 

[00:51:17:140]  because it literally comes along and strips,

 

[00:51:20:210]  uses kind of fingers, and it literally strips

 

[00:51:23:020]  all of the bolls off of this plant.

 

[00:51:27:020]  So when you look over there, you can see

 

[00:51:29:100]  the Harvester's been there and it's taken all the plants off.

 

[00:51:34:010]  ♪ (soft music) ♪

 

[00:51:43:090]  I think one of the problems that we have in the current model

 

[00:51:46:030]  is it's all about the profit.

 

[00:51:47:210]  And it doesn't take into consideration "this cost at what cost?"

 

[00:51:53:020]  The cost of polluting the water;

 

[00:51:54:180]  the cost of labor;

 

[00:51:56:150]  the cost of bars on the window

 

[00:51:58:020]  that people die when a fire breaks out in the factory;

 

[00:52:00:180]  the cost of farmers that don't have access

 

[00:52:03:220]  to education and health care.

 

[00:52:06:010]  And so we haven't really factored in what the true cost is.

 

[00:52:15:120]  (Rakesh Jaiswal) Kanpur is situated along river Ganga,

 

[00:52:18:180]  which is the holiest river.

 

[00:52:21:070]  And it's also very important for 800 million Hindus

 

[00:52:26:180]  and also it serves as the lifeline of North India.

 

[00:52:31:100]  So this river is being polluted and killed

 

[00:52:34:140]  by the leather factories of Kanpur.

 

[00:52:40:030]  (narrator) With growing demand for materials like cheap leather,

 

[00:52:43:030]  Kanpur is now the leather export capital of India.

 

[00:52:56:130]  Every day here, more than 50 million liters of toxic wastewater,

 

[00:53:00:120]  pour out of the local tanneries.

 

[00:53:02:060]  Heavy chemicals used to treat the leather like chromium-6

 

[00:53:05:060]  flow into local farming and even drinking water.

 

[00:53:09:060]  In places like Kanpur, far from the eyes of the world,

 

[00:53:12:130]  major western brands are able to source cheap materials

 

[00:53:15:080]  while avoiding all accountability for the growing cost to human health

 

[00:53:19:150]  and the environment.

 

[00:53:21:220]  ♪ (somber music) ♪

 

[00:53:31:030]  People in that area are in the tight grip of tannery pollution.

 

[00:53:37:060]  The local environment is contaminated, soil is contaminated.

 

[00:53:42:150]  The only drinking water source,

 

[00:53:45:220]  ground water, is contaminated with chromium.

 

[00:53:49:060]  Agricultural produce,

 

[00:53:51:060]  even vegetables and salad items,

 

[00:53:54:200]  are produced there.

 

[00:53:57:010]  People's health is affected.

 

[00:54:00:080]  People have different kinds of dermal problems:

 

[00:54:04:130]  skin rashes, boils, pustules,

 

[00:54:07:090]  even numbness in the limbs.

 

[00:54:08:210]  People have stomach ailments, maybe they have cancers also.

 

[00:54:15:130]  My daughter is suffering from jaundice.

 

[00:54:18:060]  Every year, people in every other houses in this region

 

[00:54:22:060]  suffer from this illness.

 

[00:54:23:140]  Even my wife had jaundice.

 

[00:54:26:070]  As I said before, many people every year have the same issue.

 

[00:54:30:010]  All our savings are used to treat the diseases,

 

[00:54:35:000]  because the chromium that's in the water

 

[00:54:39:180]  attacks the liver directly,

 

[00:54:43:090]  it creates digestion problems, and many people can get jaundice

 

[00:54:49:090]  or liver cancer if we are not able to take precautions.

 

[00:54:54:070]  (man) You can have the best of materials moving into

 

[00:54:57:030]  the high-end fashion market, in Milan or Paris, or London.

 

[00:55:02:060]  But there has been so much work which has gone behind it,

 

[00:55:07:050]  and so much of chemicals has gone into it,

 

[00:55:09:070]  the effluents has been discharging to so many rivers.

 

[00:55:12:090]  But we are only looking at that point of time

 

[00:55:15:020]  into the finished product.

 

[00:55:17:060]  We need to step back and think about it.

 

[00:55:23:110]  (narrator) Fashion today is the #2 most polluting industry

 

[00:55:26:140]  on earth, second only to the oil industry.

 

[00:55:30:070]  The alarming thing is that not only is fashion using

 

[00:55:32:150]  a huge amount of natural resources,

 

[00:55:34:130]  and creating staggering environmental impacts,

 

[00:55:37:020]  these natural resources and this impact is often not even measured.

 

[00:55:41:060]  Because they've been so abundant, these resources,

 

[00:55:45:140]  it's been assumed that they're going to be there forever.

 

[00:55:48:110]  So I think business has not accounted for them

 

[00:55:51:000]  because it's only since the 1950s

 

[00:55:54:230]  that we've really had this industrial expansion

 

[00:55:59:010]  at such a rate that we started to see exponential growth

 

[00:56:03:100]  and exponential use of natural resources.

 

[00:56:06:100]  The first economy on which our lives rest is nature's economy.

 

[00:56:09:130]  Nature has an economy.

 

[00:56:11:150]  That economy is huge. It's not counted.

 

[00:56:15:230]  Then we have people's economy, women working, laborers working,

 

[00:56:19:000]  farmers growing.

 

[00:56:20:140]  And that was made invisible through this construct,

 

[00:56:24:050]  first in the Depression, and then during the war years,

 

[00:56:26:180]  of the number called the GDP, the Gross Domestic Product,

 

[00:56:31:060]  which measures only that which is traded,

 

[00:56:36:140]  and has become a commodity.

 

[00:56:38:100]  (Mike Schragger) A lot of the resources

 

[00:56:39:240]  that we use to make our clothing are not accounted for

 

[00:56:44:180]  in the cost of producing those clothes.

 

[00:56:49:000]  So one has water that's used to produce clothing,

 

[00:56:54:090]  land that's used to grow the fiber,

 

[00:56:58:040]  chemicals that are used to dye.

 

[00:57:02:030]  Those things all are inputs.

 

[00:57:06:110]  And as inputs, they cost something,

 

[00:57:10:120]  and they also give outputs,

 

[00:57:12:210]  in some cases good outputs, the clothing themselves, jobs,

 

[00:57:17:030]  but in other cases bad outputs, like harmful chemicals,

 

[00:57:21:050]  or greenhouse gas emissions,

 

[00:57:23:060]  and those things have costs as well.

 

[00:57:29:060]  (ringing)

 

[00:57:36:030]  Sleep on the pillow.

 

[00:57:39:020]  (man) Will you feel bad leaving Nadia?

 

[00:57:41:140]  Of course I feel bad but there's nothing to do.

 

[00:57:45:060]  With a job here, I'm forced to leave her in the village.

 

[00:57:49:120]  In the last two months, she never sat with her books.

 

[00:57:52:060]  She only watches TV and cartoons.

 

[00:57:53:190]  And music videos.

 

[00:57:55:040]  But if she stays in the village, she cannot do that.

 

[00:57:57:160]  She goes to the school in the morning, comes back at noon

 

[00:58:00:080]  and at 3 p.m. she goes for private tutoring.

 

[00:58:03:070]  It's not possible for that here.

 

[00:58:04:140]  (child speaks in Bengali)

 

[00:58:07:100]  (man) What do you do with Nadia now?

 

[00:58:09:150]  Sometimes I leave her with the neighbor,

 

[00:58:12:120]  sometimes her father used to look after her.

 

[00:58:17:110]  And I took her to my factory sometimes.

 

[00:58:19:180]  I took her to the factory yesterday.

 

[00:58:21:180]  (crowd chattering)

 

[00:58:26:080]  (narrator) The same low wages that have made places like Bangladesh

 

[00:58:29:000]  so attractive for brands to do business,

 

[00:58:31:140]  have left millions of workers here, working incredibly long hours,

 

[00:58:35:030]  unable to afford to keep their children with them,

 

[00:58:37:120]  even in the cities' worst slums.

 

[00:58:40:100]  In order to give their children an education,

 

[00:58:42:160]  and a chance of a better future than life in the factories,

 

[00:58:45:120]  many garment workers here, like Shima, are leaving their children

 

[00:58:49:130]  to be raised by family or friends in villages outside the city,

 

[00:58:53:000]  only getting to see them once or twice a year.

 

[00:58:57:070]  ♪ (soft music) ♪

 

[00:59:31:080]  (children chattering)

 

[00:59:39:070]  This is my dad,

 

[00:59:41:090]  it's been a year since I have seen him.

 

[00:59:44:160]  Sometimes I talk to him on the phone

 

[00:59:47:100]  but it's been a year since I have seen him.

 

[00:59:52:240]  This is my mom,

 

[00:59:56:130]  it's been a year since I last saw her.

 

[00:59:59:150]  I talk to her on the phone as well but I don't see her often.

 

[01:00:06:070]  (family talking in Bengali)

 

[01:00:28:060]  (mother and children speaking animatedly)

 

[01:00:43:190]  There is no limit to the struggle of Bangladeshi workers.

 

[01:00:47:040]  Every day we wake up early in the morning;

 

[01:00:50:120]  we go to the factory, and work really hard all day.

 

[01:00:54:180]  And with all the hard labor we make the clothing.

 

[01:00:58:200]  And that's what people wear.

 

[01:01:04:000]  People have no idea how difficult it is for us to make the clothing.

 

[01:01:10:110]  They only buy it and wear it.

 

[01:01:13:180]  I believe these clothes are produced by our blood.

 

[01:01:16:210]  A lot of garment workers die in different accidents.

 

[01:01:21:200]  Like a year ago, there was a collapse in Rana Plaza.

 

[01:01:26:160]  A lot of workers died there.

 

[01:01:30:030]  It's very painful for us.

 

[01:01:34:190]  I don't want anyone wearing anything,

 

[01:01:38:100]  which is produced by our blood.

 

[01:01:40:220]  We want better working conditions, so that everyone becomes aware.

 

[01:01:43:240]  I don't want another owner like the owner of Rana Plaza

 

[01:01:48:030]  to take such a risk and force the workers

 

[01:01:52:150]  to work in such conditions.

 

[01:01:56:080]  So that no more workers die like that.

 

[01:01:59:150]  So that no more mothers lose their child like this.

 

[01:02:03:130]  I never want this, I want the owners to be a little more aware

 

[01:02:07:170]  and look after us.

 

[01:02:15:230]  You know, we are actually profiting

 

[01:02:18:000]  from their need to work, to use them as slaves.

 

[01:02:23:040]  And I'm not saying that we don't-- we need to give them work,

 

[01:02:27:000]  but they have to be treated with the same respect

 

[01:02:31:120]  that we treat our children, our friends.

 

[01:02:34:190]  They're not different from us.

 

[01:02:37:030]  (narrator) Livia Firth has been calling for major change

 

[01:02:39:080]  in the fashion industry.

 

[01:02:40:140]  She made headlines by starting something

 

[01:02:42:090]  called "The Green Carpet Challenge,"

 

[01:02:44:030]  urging celebrities and top designers

 

[01:02:45:230]  to take part in more mindful forms of fashion.

 

[01:02:49:000]  She runs a sustainability consulting firm called Eco Age,

 

[01:02:51:230]  and had just been invited to speak at a conference

 

[01:02:53:230]  on the future of fashion.

 

[01:02:55:160]  If Fast Fashion didn't exist,

 

[01:02:58:060]  we wouldn't need to have a summit in Copenhagen

 

[01:03:00:190]  to try and clean the mess of environmental destruction,

 

[01:03:04:180]  social justice destruction, that has been caused

 

[01:03:08:040]  in the last 15 to 20 years of its existence.

 

[01:03:11:190]  Fast Fashion wants to produce fast,

 

[01:03:14:140]  so the garment worker has to produce faster and cheap.

 

[01:03:18:220]  So the garment worker is the only point of the supply chain

 

[01:03:23:010]  where the margins are squeezed.

 

[01:03:25:030]  And you have these huge companies

 

[01:03:28:220]  going to the factory in Bangladesh,

 

[01:03:30:170]  place an order for 1.5 million jeans

 

[01:03:33:050]  for 30 cents each, 50 cents each...

 

[01:03:37:020]  How can you make it ethical?

 

[01:03:38:240]  I don't know.

 

[01:03:41:120]  But also, from the consumer point of view,

 

[01:03:43:160]  is it really democratic to buy a t-shirt for $5

 

[01:03:47:050]  or pay $20 for your jeans?

 

[01:03:49:190]  Or are they taking us for a ride?

 

[01:03:53:030]  Because they're making us believe that we are rich or wealthy

 

[01:03:56:200]  because we can buy a lot.

 

[01:03:58:220]  But in fact they are making us poorer.

 

[01:04:01:170]  And the only person who is becoming richer

 

[01:04:04:120]  is the owner of the Fast Fashion brand.

 

[01:04:07:140]  So that makes me a little bit angry.

 

[01:04:10:090]  (audience applause)

 

[01:04:17:200]  You spoke about a commitment

 

[01:04:20:170]  to try and promise a basic living wage.

 

[01:04:26:210]  What does that mean?

 

[01:04:28:160]  How do you define a fair living wage in Bangladesh?

 

[01:04:32:140]  You know, what does that mean?

 

[01:04:36:030]  And to have a pilot project in three factories,

 

[01:04:39:040]  and by 2018, 15% of your factories are going to have that?

 

[01:04:43:230]  It's not good enough. It's not.

 

[01:04:46:180]  It's very clear for us that what a living wage is,

 

[01:04:49:170]  is something that the workers should say,

 

[01:04:52:050]  and that's incorporated in our way of working.

 

[01:04:56:150]  (Livia) How much is it?

 

[01:04:58:000]  And that's not for us to say a sum,

 

[01:05:00:040]  but we do an assessment all the time.

 

[01:05:02:160]  (Livia) How much is it?

 

[01:05:03:180]  And to make sure that it covers the basic needs of the workers.

 

[01:05:08:150]  I can show you that later on.

 

[01:05:11:210]  (narrator) H&M has mastered the model of Fast Fashion,

 

[01:05:14:160]  becoming the second largest clothing corporation in history.

 

[01:05:18:010]  With annual revenue of more than $18 billion dollars,

 

[01:05:21:170]  they are now one of the largest producers of clothing

 

[01:05:24:080]  in both Bangladesh and Cambodia.

 

[01:05:27:030]  Sadly, along with every other major retailer I asked,

 

[01:05:30:060]  they declined all interview requests for this film.

 

[01:05:44:110]  (crowd cheering)

 

[01:05:48:150]  (narrator) In Cambodia, garment workers have had enough.

 

[01:05:51:070]  Recently taking to the streets

 

[01:05:52:210]  to demand a minimum wage increase in the country.

 

[01:06:01:070]  As protests continued, workers were met with violent crackdowns,

 

[01:06:04:170]  as police began to open fire with live rounds.

 

[01:06:08:210]  (woman shouting in Khmer )

 

[01:06:13:030]  (shouting, cars honking)

 

[01:06:23:230]  (screaming, glass breaking)

 

[01:06:28:040]  (male reporter) A woman has been killed, and several people injured

 

[01:06:30:200]  in clashes between clothes factory workers

 

[01:06:33:020]  and riot police in Cambodia.

 

[01:06:37:140]  (gunshots firing)

 

[01:06:41:150]  (women shouting)

 

[01:06:50:050]  (cries and shouts)

 

[01:07:08:100]  For two days, Cambodia was a battleground.

 

[01:07:13:020]  The city of Phnom Penh.

 

[01:07:15:030]  The police, the paratroopers were brought in

 

[01:07:19:040]  as if there were war on the streets of Phnom Penh.

 

[01:07:23:230]  Why? Because workers in the textile industry

 

[01:07:27:190]  continued to demand

 

[01:07:29:240]  a minimum wage of at least $160.

 

[01:07:36:010]  The government violently cracked down on us, and as a result

 

[01:07:38:180]  5 workers were killed, 23 were arrested,

 

[01:07:41:040]  and more than 40 were injured.

 

[01:07:43:140]  And we are not actually asking for much money

 

[01:07:46:010]  we just want a proper salary to make a decent living with dignity.

 

[01:07:51:120]  But the government doesn't care about how poor we are

 

[01:07:56:050]  or how much suffering we have faced.

 

[01:07:58:120]  They don't care about the workers at all.

 

[01:08:00:150]  So we keep demanding for $160 US

 

[01:08:05:230]  minimum wage per month.

 

[01:08:10:200]  (man) Today is the funeral of a factory worker.

 

[01:08:16:240]  He was beaten to death.

 

[01:08:21:000]  He had suffered a lot before his death this morning.

 

[01:08:27:000]  And he had done nothing wrong.

 

[01:08:30:240]  He, among his fellow workers,

 

[01:08:36:010]  wanted to have better living conditions.

 

[01:08:40:020]  (chanting prayers)

 

[01:09:06:060]  We will continue his fight

 

[01:09:10:180]  so that all Cambodian workers

 

[01:09:15:220]  (voice tremblng with emotion) will have decent living conditions.

 

[01:09:20:100]  (interviewer) Thank you sir.

 

[01:09:30:160]  (narrator) The Cambodian government, like other developing countries

 

[01:09:33:180]  are desperate for the business that multinational retailers bring.

 

[01:09:38:020]  Because of the constant threat that these brands

 

[01:09:40:000]  will relocate production to other low-cost countries,

 

[01:09:42:220]  the government holds down wages,

 

[01:09:45:000]  routinely avoiding enforcement of local labor laws.

 

[01:09:48:040]  But because the major brands do not officially employ the workers,

 

[01:09:51:080]  or own any of the factories they produce in,

 

[01:09:54:030]  they're able to profit hugely,

 

[01:09:56:050]  all while remaining free of responsibility

 

[01:09:58:170]  for the effects of poverty wages, factory disasters,

 

[01:10:02:000]  and the ongoing violent treatment of workers.

 

[01:10:05:070]  The whole system begins to feel

 

[01:10:07:150]  like a perfectly engineered nightmare

 

[01:10:09:190]  for the workers trapped inside of it.

 

[01:10:14:160]  (Sochua Mu) You cannot fool us, and exploit our human resources,

 

[01:10:19:070]  exploit our workers.

 

[01:10:20:220]  The workers will continue to rise up.

 

[01:10:23:180]  I call on the international brands

 

[01:10:27:110]  to put that struggle into dollars,

 

[01:10:33:030]  into pounds, into Euros.

 

[01:10:36:180]  It translates into human capital.

 

[01:10:40:150]  It translates into social responsibility

 

[01:10:45:010]  of these big corporations.

 

[01:10:46:180]  It translates into economic justice.

 

[01:10:50:070]  When everything is concentrated on making profits

 

[01:10:53:180]  for the big corporations,

 

[01:10:55:120]  what you see is that human rights,

 

[01:10:57:050]  the environment, workers' rights get lost all together.

 

[01:11:00:160]  You see that workers are increasingly exploited

 

[01:11:03:120]  because the price of everything is pushed down, and down and down,

 

[01:11:07:080]  just to satisfy this impulse to accumulate capital.

 

[01:11:11:070]  And that's profoundly problematic,

 

[01:11:13:100]  because it leads to the mass impoverishment

 

[01:11:15:240]  of hundreds of millions of people around the world.

 

[01:11:20:220]  (woman) If you write to any of these companies,

 

[01:11:22:220]  they'll send you their Code of Conduct.

 

[01:11:24:170]  And it's beautiful, and it says, "Oh yes, we take responsibility

 

[01:11:28:240]  for the conditions under which our product is made,

 

[01:11:31:210]  the product that you buy.

 

[01:11:33:080]  All the factories where we produce,

 

[01:11:35:060]  we require them to respect the minimum-wage laws,

 

[01:11:39:100]  all of the laws of the country,

 

[01:11:41:090]  to respect women, not to hire children,

 

[01:11:45:100]  no forced labor,

 

[01:11:48:080]  no excessive overtime hours," all that stuff.

 

[01:11:53:140]  But when we submitted a bill in Congress a few years ago,

 

[01:11:58:060]  or worked with people to do that,

 

[01:12:00:200]  we called it "The Decent Working Conditions and Fair Competition Act,"

 

[01:12:05:000]  the companies responded in one voice,

 

[01:12:07:220]  "Oh no! That would be an impediment to free trade.

 

[01:12:10:180]  We can't have rules. We can't have that!"

 

[01:12:14:140]  They want to keep it with voluntary codes of conduct.

 

[01:12:18:100]  They've fought for, and they've won

 

[01:12:20:140]  laws to protect their stuff and their interests,

 

[01:12:25:050]  but what about the workers?

 

[01:12:26:180]  The workers are left with voluntary codes of conduct.

 

[01:12:29:100]  And what we see, in case, after case, after case,

 

[01:12:33:180]  is that those voluntary codes of conduct

 

[01:12:36:010]  are not worth the paper that they're written on.

 

[01:12:38:100]  We need to acknowledge, particularly in the fashion industry,

 

[01:12:42:010]  that human capital is part of this miraculous formula.

 

[01:12:46:180]  Without human capital, without cheap labor,

 

[01:12:50:080]  cheap female labor,

 

[01:12:51:220]  it would not be generating the profits that it is.

 

[01:12:56:060]  That needs to be acknowledged, it needs to be dealt with,

 

[01:12:59:190]  and those people need to be rewarded instead of exploited.

 

[01:13:03:090]  Where is their piece of the pie?

 

[01:13:05:050]  That's what we constantly have to ask ourselves.

 

[01:13:07:150]  Are those buyers immoral? or do they just don't, or are they amoral?

 

[01:13:11:170]  The system they're working for and the system that allows companies

 

[01:13:14:120]  to do this is amoral.

 

[01:13:16:020]  The individuals concerned are simply products of that system

 

[01:13:18:220]  and having to drive it through to its logical conclusion.

 

[01:13:21:090]  What we need to do is change the way those companies operate.

 

[01:13:25:210]  (narrator) Operating within a system that only measures profit,

 

[01:13:28:160]  companies have little incentive to do anything

 

[01:13:31:000]  other than to make this quarter better than the last.

 

[01:13:34:020]  No matter what damage is caused along the way.

 

[01:13:37:080]  As corporations that make up the global fashion industry,

 

[01:13:40:010]  major brands as well as seed and chemical companies,

 

[01:13:42:240]  are growing today to reach unprecedented global size and power.

 

[01:13:46:210]  This mandate for profit at all cost, is beginning to stand

 

[01:13:50:170]  in direct opposition to the values that we share.

 

[01:13:54:220]  Richard Wolff is an economist,

 

[01:13:56:120]  who after graduating from Harvard, Stanford and Yale,

 

[01:14:00:050]  became convinced that the real problem

 

[01:14:02:020]  is within this system itself.

 

[01:14:04:100]  So America became a peculiar country.

 

[01:14:08:100]  You could criticize the education system

 

[01:14:10:090]  to make the schools better.

 

[01:14:11:140]  You could criticize the transportation system

 

[01:14:13:150]  to make that work better.

 

[01:14:14:230]  You could crit--

 

[01:14:15:220]  But you couldn't criticize the economic system.

 

[01:14:18:190]  That got a free pass.

 

[01:14:21:010]  You couldn't criticize...

 

[01:14:23:050]  And if you don't criticize something for 50 years,

 

[01:14:25:180]  it rots, it goes to seed.

 

[01:14:28:170]  One of the ways a healthy society works

 

[01:14:30:150]  is it subjects its component systems to criticism,

 

[01:14:34:170]  so that we can debate it, and hopefully fix it,

 

[01:14:37:080]  or improve it or do better.

 

[01:14:39:090]  Capitalism couldn't be questioned.

 

[01:14:42:010]  Capitalism is the reason

 

[01:14:43:070]  the fashion industry looks as it does today.

 

[01:14:46:090]  It's the reason why workers in Bangladesh are paid so little.

 

[01:14:50:000]  Because if you're operating in a capitalist system,

 

[01:14:52:210]  the main thing you have to do is create profit

 

[01:14:56:010]  and you have to create more profit than your competitors.

 

[01:14:59:170]  And this is what drives companies

 

[01:15:01:150]  to push wages down, and down, and down.

 

[01:15:04:210]  But companies don't go-- like fashion retailers

 

[01:15:08:220]  don't go to places like Bangladesh, for any other reason except

 

[01:15:13:160]  they can get the cheapest labor possible.

 

[01:15:16:120]  There's no collective rights in Bangladesh,

 

[01:15:18:210]  there's no trade union rights,

 

[01:15:20:160]  there's a very, very low minimum wage,

 

[01:15:22:170]  there's no maternity benefits, there's no pensions,

 

[01:15:25:220]  that is why the fashion industry is in Bangladesh

 

[01:15:28:080]  because it can reap the biggest profits out of those people

 

[01:15:31:170]  that are making the clothes for them.

 

[01:15:33:150]  Before you can solve a problem, you have to admit you got one

 

[01:15:37:010]  and before we're going to fix an economic system

 

[01:15:39:070]  that's working this way, and producing such tensions

 

[01:15:42:130]  and inequalities and strains on our community,

 

[01:15:46:090]  we have to face the real scope of the problem we have

 

[01:15:50:090]  and that's with the system as a whole.

 

[01:15:53:000]  And at the very least,

 

[01:15:54:090]  we have to open up a national debate about it,

 

[01:15:57:020]  and at the most, I think we have to think long and hard

 

[01:16:00:160]  about alternative systems that might work better.

 

[01:16:03:140]  (John) For the environment, the great threat is that capital

 

[01:16:06:240]  must continue to expand infinitely in order to survive.

 

[01:16:11:080]  It can't have any limits on its expansion and its growth.

 

[01:16:15:030]  The natural world clearly does have limits.

 

[01:16:17:190]  There are very defined limits to how much the world can sustain

 

[01:16:21:110]  in terms of production, in terms of trade,

 

[01:16:23:230]  in terms of transport and distribution.

 

[01:16:26:100]  And it's quite clear that we have already overstepped

 

[01:16:28:230]  a lot of those limits, which is why you're seeing such stress

 

[01:16:32:040]  in the natural world at the moment.

 

[01:16:34:180]  (Tansy Hoskins) The system we live in isn't one

 

[01:16:36:150]  that most people want to live in.

 

[01:16:38:100]  I think it's a system that makes most people very unhappy,

 

[01:16:41:100]  and I don't think people want to live on a slowly dying planet

 

[01:16:44:200]  or to be exploiting their neighbors.

 

[01:16:48:110]  I think we need huge systemic change.

 

[01:16:52:080]  (Richard) If you don't change the system,

 

[01:16:54:210]  you're leaving intact

 

[01:16:57:150]  the decision-making of these enterprises,

 

[01:17:00:200]  which means a small group of executives and shareholders

 

[01:17:04:040]  are going to be working in the same system,

 

[01:17:06:180]  subject to the same pattern of rewards and punishments,

 

[01:17:09:180]  which will sooner or later make them reimpose,

 

[01:17:13:090]  there or elsewhere,

 

[01:17:15:000]  the very conditions you're fighting against.

 

[01:17:17:090]  So stop this stuff about improving their conditions,

 

[01:17:20:210]  deal with the system, or else you're not serious.

 

[01:17:25:030]  (Tim) Our economic system is one of consumer capitalism,

 

[01:17:28:060]  and that's why the government needs to have consumption

 

[01:17:33:000]  at very high levels,

 

[01:17:35:010]  and why, of course, the corporations do,

 

[01:17:37:010]  and why at some level most people then buy into it.

 

[01:17:40:120]  I can't tell you the number of people I talked to who say,

 

[01:17:42:200]  "Well, but if we became less materialistic our economy would tank."

 

[01:17:47:170]  Well, they're right in some level, because our economy

 

[01:17:52:180]  is based on materialism, it's based on these kinds of values.

 

[01:17:58:120]  That's what it needs in order to survive.

 

[01:18:01:110]  That's part of the fuel that it needs.

 

[01:18:04:070]  The problem is that comes at a really high price.

 

[01:18:07:060]  ♪ Black Friday's here, can we go please? ♪

 

[01:18:10:100]  ♪ Go, go, go, go, go, shop, shop, shop, shop ♪

 

[01:18:13:060]  (reporter) Black Friday shopping mania

 

[01:18:14:180]  still playing out tonight at malls across America.

 

[01:18:17:060]  In some places across this country tonight,

 

[01:18:19:080]  it's as if someone announced

 

[01:18:20:190]  we're in danger of running out of stuff,

 

[01:18:22:200]  and those who need stuff had better go out and buy it now

 

[01:18:25:180]  because it's going away forever.

 

[01:18:27:130]  (female reporter) Walmart, doing more than 10 million transactions

 

[01:18:30:140]  in the first four hours of the frenzy.

 

[01:18:32:180]  A record 15,000 people at Macy's in New York City, shoppers hung tough.

 

[01:18:38:090]  Black Friday will be the single largest day of the retail year.

 

[01:18:41:180]  Certainly in the case of Macy's-- we'll do more business on this day

 

[01:18:45:110]  than on any other day of the year.

 

[01:18:48:020]  Nation! This orgy of Christmas shopping proves America is back!

 

[01:18:53:030]  We are once again... Yes! (audience cheers)

 

[01:18:56:120]  Oh yes!

 

[01:18:58:190]  We are once again spending money we don't have

 

[01:19:02:180]  on things we don't need to give to people we don't like.

 

[01:19:06:060]  (audience cheers and claps)

 

[01:19:08:210]  USA! USA! USA! USA!

 

[01:19:13:190]  ♪ (music) ♪

 

[01:19:16:230]  (frenzied screams)

 

[01:19:19:060]  (male bystander) Oh my god!

 

[01:19:23:170]  ♪ I've kept my grip so tight ♪

 

[01:19:28:030]  ♪ I won't let anyone get in my way ♪

 

[01:19:32:120]  ♪ I want beautiful things ♪

 

[01:19:35:080]  ♪ golden rings, golden rings ♪

 

[01:19:39:120]  ♪ and I get what I want ♪

 

[01:19:43:220]  ♪ I live just to get what I want ♪

 

[01:19:46:210]  ♪ and I want it all, I want it all ♪

 

[01:20:23:240]  (people screaming)

 

[01:20:38:170]  (heavy rain)

 

[01:20:43:220]  (raindrops drumming on roof)

 

[01:21:02:200]  (Shima speaking in Bengali)

 

[01:21:20:010]  (children playing)

 

[01:21:26:010]  (Shima) They love her a lot

 

[01:21:28:170]  and can possibly take better care of her than me.

 

[01:21:31:000]  Still, one thing makes me sad.

 

[01:21:33:120]  No matter how much someone loves her,

 

[01:21:35:180]  no one can love a child more than the parents.

 

[01:21:38:220]  I feel heartbroken.

 

[01:21:45:060]  ♪ (somber music) ♪

 

[01:21:56:020]  I don't want my daughter to have to work in a garment factory like me.

 

[01:22:03:040]  I feel bad, but I think I will be happy one day

 

[01:22:08:080]  when she has a good future.

 

[01:22:11:070]  She will be a good human being and people will say,

 

[01:22:15:010]  that even though Shima worked in a garment factory

 

[01:22:18:010]  and stayed in Dhaka, away from her child,

 

[01:22:21:130]  that she gave a good education to her child

 

[01:22:23:050]  and raised her as a good human being.

 

[01:22:24:170]  If she gets a good government job, or get married to a good man,

 

[01:22:28:060]  then people will say that and I would be very proud of that.

 

[01:22:35:120]  That yes, I struggled,

 

[01:22:37:220]  but I tried my best not to let her go through this.

 

[01:22:39:230]  That I raised her well.

 

[01:22:47:020]  (Larhea) I grew up on a farm, married a guy that grew up on a farm,

 

[01:22:50:220]  and those of us living on the farm live there.

 

[01:22:55:000]  It needs to be safe for us too.

 

[01:22:57:170]  The new chemicals that are coming out,

 

[01:22:59:130]  and the intensity of the use, was just continuing to increase.

 

[01:23:03:180]  And then in 2005,

 

[01:23:10:080]  Terry started having some loss of fine motor skills,

 

[01:23:13:110]  and this and that, and come to find out,

 

[01:23:15:110]  he had glioblastoma multiforme, Stage 4 brain tumor,

 

[01:23:20:050]  and at the prime age of 47 years old.

 

[01:23:25:050]  He died at the age of 50.

 

[01:23:27:050]  They gave us six months, we had two-and-a-half years

 

[01:23:29:180]  and the brain surgeon that worked on him,

 

[01:23:33:100]  Lubbock has got huge cancer clinics and a medical hub.

 

[01:23:39:160]  We didn't have to go someplace else to have a brain tumor surgery.

 

[01:23:42:090]  We were able to stay right here

 

[01:23:44:060]  because he does so many of them.

 

[01:23:46:080]  He said that these kinds of tumors are found in men, aged 45-65,

 

[01:23:50:070]  that work in the agricultural industry, or the oil field.

 

[01:23:55:150]  And so while I don't have a smoking gun, and the blood tests that say

 

[01:23:58:190]  the use of cotton chemicals, agricultural chemicals,

 

[01:24:04:030]  directly lead to my husband's death,

 

[01:24:06:160]  there's just too many linkages with his father's death.

 

[01:24:09:170]  Growing up on a chemically-intensive farm,

 

[01:24:11:180]  we live in the middle of 3.6 million acres of cotton

 

[01:24:14:190]  that use a lot of chemicals.

 

[01:24:16:140]  And so at that point in time,

 

[01:24:19:230]  organic was no longer important to me,

 

[01:24:23:110]  it was imperative.

 

[01:24:25:010]  It's imperative that we change agriculture.

 

[01:24:27:120]  It's imperative, if we're talking about the long-term sustainability

 

[01:24:31:030]  and well being of our lives on this planet,

 

[01:24:33:200]  and our children's lives on the planet,

 

[01:24:35:210]  that we have to change.

 

[01:24:39:080]  ♪ (soft music and nature sounds) ♪

 

[01:24:43:130]  (subway rumbling)

 

[01:25:01:060]  (Safia) This is the beginning of a turning point

 

[01:25:03:040]  not just for a responsible way of doing fashion,

 

[01:25:06:030]  but for a new way of doing capitalism,

 

[01:25:07:230]  for a new way of doing economics.

 

[01:25:10:090]  I'm sure that we will see a significant change

 

[01:25:15:130]  over the next ten years.

 

[01:25:17:200]  Whether it's in time or not, is another question.

 

[01:25:22:150]  (Tim) You know, Martin Luther King Jr.,

 

[01:25:24:050]  at a speech in a Brooklyn church, he said that

 

[01:25:26:180]  what America needed was a revolution of values.

 

[01:25:30:090]  It needed to stop treating people like things.

 

[01:25:33:100]  It needed to stop treating people in ways

 

[01:25:36:160]  that were just about profit.

 

[01:25:38:090]  But instead to treat people in a real, and human way.

 

[01:25:43:040]  (Richard) My god! We can do better than this!

 

[01:25:46:050]  If what we want is to spread, as I would argue we do,

 

[01:25:51:180]  spread industry around the world, not concentrated in one place.

 

[01:25:55:180]  Let the benefits be shared globally,

 

[01:26:00:050]  then let's do that in an orderly, reasonable, careful way.

 

[01:26:05:190]  (Vandana) We need to recognize that capital is just money.

 

[01:26:09:030]  Money is a means,

 

[01:26:10:150]  and people should be accountable for how it's used.

 

[01:26:13:120]  We need to celebrate the creative power of human beings.

 

[01:26:18:120]  And we need to talk of creative work,

 

[01:26:20:100]  we must stop talking about labor.

 

[01:26:22:190]  We need to look at the land as not a commodity,

 

[01:26:27:170]  to be speculated on and traded,

 

[01:26:29:230]  but as the very basis of our life, as Mother Earth.

 

[01:26:33:170]  (Lucy) You change all consumers into activists,

 

[01:26:37:060]  all consumers asking ethical questions,

 

[01:26:39:100]  all consumers asking quite simple questions about

 

[01:26:42:180]  where their clothes are from,

 

[01:26:44:110]  all consumers saying, "I'm sorry, it's not acceptable for someone to die

 

[01:26:48:170]  in the course of a working day."

 

[01:26:50:080]  We can just roll over and say, "Yes, have it. Do what you like."

 

[01:26:53:040]  It's too important, it's too significant an industry.

 

[01:26:56:040]  It has too much impact and effect on millions of people worldwide,

 

[01:27:00:200]  and common resources.

 

[01:27:02:200]  ♪ (somber music) ♪

 

[01:27:09:010]  (narrator) Will we continue to search for happiness

 

[01:27:11:010]  in the consumption of things?

 

[01:27:13:230]  Will we be satisfied with a system that makes us feel rich,

 

[01:27:17:130]  while leaving our world so desperately poor?

 

[01:27:20:200]  Will we continue to turn a blind eye

 

[01:27:22:190]  to the lives of those behind our clothes?

 

[01:27:25:060]  or will this be a turning point, a new chapter in our story,

 

[01:27:28:180]  when together, we begin to make a real change,

 

[01:27:31:230]  as we remember that everything we wear was touched by human hands.

 

[01:27:37:190]  In the midst of all the challenges facing us today,

 

[01:27:40:120]  for all the problems that feel bigger than us

 

[01:27:43:020]  and beyond our control,

 

[01:27:44:230]  maybe we could start here,

 

[01:27:46:220]  with clothing.

 

[01:27:56:080]  ♪ (upbeat music) ♪

 

[01:30:35:090]  ♪ (somber music) ♪