Fixing Fashion by Michael Lavergne

Author:Michael Lavergne
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781550925951
Publisher: New Society Publishers
Published: 2015-03-24T04:00:00+00:00

Getting it Right: How Verité Sets the Benchmark

Based in Amherst, Massachusetts, labor rights consultant Verité is a highly respected nonprofit group working with brands, NGOs, retailers and researchers dedicated to legal, fair and safe working conditions globally. The firm got its start in 1995 as the brainchild of Heather White, a former sourcing agent with strong on-the-ground experience in China. Ms. White is one of a small group of ethical supply chain professionals whose passion and example have deeply influenced my own commitment toward driving change in the apparel industry due, in part, to some similarities in our experiences.

Aside from her practical sourcing background, which is not all that common to find in accountability and auditing professionals, she is also an accomplished academic. A recent fellow of the Edmond J. Safra Center for Ethics at Harvard University, Heather completed her Master’s in international political economy at MIT following her earlier undergraduate work in East Asian Studies at Harvard. At the time of this writing, she has been collaborating as producer and co-director on an upcoming documentary film addressing the human costs of offshore electronics manufacturing titled, “Who Pays the Price?”

What sets Verité apart from the work of commercially motivated monitoring firms is their worker-centered approach to driving responsible supply chain activities. Dan Viederman, CEO at the firm since Heather’s departure, was forthcoming when I asked about the roots of this approach:

“This emerges from our recognition that workers are a key stakeholder in workplaces and no honest assessment of workplace conditions can ignore their viewpoint, nor could any gaps or problems be solved without worker involvement.”

Their structure as a consulting firm versus that of a volume-driven audit provider means that they approach work on a customized basis in lieu of following a cookie-cutter, one-size-fits-all model. Ensuring sufficient management commitment exists from potential corporate clients and that multiple stakeholders have a voice within projects are key to their taking on engagements. The organization’s stated goal is to make sure that they can contribute in a meaningful way toward resolving the most pressing human rights and labor relations issues within supply chains and manufacturing environments. Thus, they look holistically at a range of tools to best address real root causes in greater depth than any quick in-and-out, man-day audit ever could. Audits alone, after all, are simply a snapshot in time, which (potentially) provide a glimpse into management practices on the day the audit was executed.

In Verité’s experience, training of production employees, factory management and clients’ supply chain teams, combined with policy and practice gap analysis, industry research and yes, audit assessments, all make for a more comprehensive approach. But even their audits are weighted differently than those used to determine potential risks from a brand/retailer point of view. True to their worker-centered model, assessments are heavily dependent on input directly from production-line employees. Significantly, more emphasis is placed on human interactions, employee contributions, observations and input than what the black-and-white of forensic-document audits or brief, in-factory interviews might.

As Dan puts it: “The

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