Skip to main content
Log in

Conflicts of Responsibility in the Globalized Textile Supply Chain. Lessons of a Tragedy

  • Published:
Journal of Consumer Policy Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

Eight years before the Rana Plaza collapse (24 April 2013), which killed over 1100 people and received huge international media coverage, a somewhat similar tragedy drew my attention: the collapse of the Spectrum Sweater Industries Ltd. factory (10 April 2005), which was responsible for the death of 64 people and led to some international mobilization. This paper describes and analyses the international career of the mobilization for the victims spurred by the tragedy. How were European consumers and citizens called upon to act? How did the European brands react? In the end, the question is how the appeal to Western firms’ “Corporate Social Responsibility” (CSR) can help improve the working conditions prevailing in Southern factories. By applying a generic definition of responsibility (the controlled administration of a sanction) and minutely examining the imputations of responsibility consecutive to the Spectrum tragedy, the paper exposes the work of activists who attempted to establish Western companies’ responsibility, and how some of the tagged companies resisted their moral obligation to protect workers beyond an employer–employee relationship stricto sensu.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Similar content being viewed by others

Notes

  1. A book also tells the story of the Spectrum Sweater Factory Collapse. See: Miller 2012.

  2. Daniel Bernard was the President and Director of the Carrefour group. Removed from office in February 2005, he negotiated indemnities of several million euros for himself but after the ensuing scandal, those indemnities were finally cancelled.

  3. The tension between those two earmarkings of the money spent—either as a due or as a donation—echoes Viviana Zelizer’s narrative of the conflict surrounding “Christmas bonuses” in the America of the early 20th century (Zelizer 1994): When the firm stopped giving gifts in kind and began systematically attributing amounts in cash, union representatives fought to turn them into part of the salary, rather than a liberality decided by the bosses. When at last, in 1950, they succeeded, they made sure those bonuses would be kept up.

References

  • Barraud de Lagerie, P. (2013). The wages of sweat: A social history perspective on the fight against sweatshops. Sociologie du travail, 55(Sup. 1), e1–e23.

  • Becker, H. S. (1963). Outsiders: Studies in the sociology of deviance. New York: The Free Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Bender, D. E., & Greenwald, R. A. (2003). Sweatshop USA: The American sweatshop in historical and global perspective. London: Routledge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Boltanski, L., Claverie, É., Offenstadt, N., & Van Damme, S. (Eds.) (2007). Affaires, scandales et grandes causes: De Socrate à Pinochet. Paris: Stock.

    Google Scholar 

  • Carroll, A. B. (2008). A history of corporate social responsibility: Concepts and practices. In A. Crane, A. McWilliams, D. Matten, J. Moon, & D. S. Siegel (Eds.), The Oxford handbook of corporate social responsibility (pp. 19–46). Oxford: Oxford University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Crook, C. (2005). Survey: The good company, The Economist, 22 January.

  • Daugareilh, I. (2009). La responsabilité sociale des entreprises, un projet européen en panne. Sociologie du travail, 51(4), 499–517.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • de Blic, D., & Lemieux, C. (2005). Le scandale comme épreuve. Éléments de sociologie pragmatique [The Scandal as Test: Elements of Pragmatic Sociology]. Politix, 71(3), 9–38.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Elliott, K. A., & Freeman, R. B. (2003). Can labor standards improve under globalization? Washington DC: Institute for International Economics.

    Google Scholar 

  • Esbenshade, J. (2004). Monitoring sweatshops. Workers, consumers, and the global apparel industry. Philadelphia: Temple University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • European Commission. (2001), Green paper: Promoting a European framework for Corporate Social Responsibility, COM (2001) 366 final.

  • Fauconnet, P. ([1920] 1928). La responsabilité. Étude de sociologie. Paris: Félix Alcan.

  • Felstiner, W. L. F., Abel, R. L. & Sarat, A. (1980–1981). The emergence and transformation of disputes: Naming, blaming, claiming. Law & Society Review, 15(3/4), 631–654.

  • Hirschman, A. O. (1970). Exit, voice, and loyalty: Responses to decline in firms, organizations, and states. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Klein, N. (2000). No logo. Taking aim at the brand bullies. Toronto: Vintage Canada.

    Google Scholar 

  • Lemieux, C. (2007). L’accusation tolérante. Remarques sur les rapports entre commérage, scandale et affaire. In L. Boltanski, É. Claverie, N. Offenstadt, & S. Van Damme (Eds.), Affaires, scandales et grandes causes: de Socrate à Pinochet (pp. 367–394). Paris: Stock.

    Google Scholar 

  • Locke, R. M. (2013). The Promise and limits of private power. Promoting labor standards in a global economy. Ithaca (NY): Cornell University Press.

  • Lund-Thomsen, P., & Lindgreen, A. (2014). Corporate social responsibility in global value chains: where are we now and where are we going? Journal of Business Ethics, 123(1), 11–22

  • Mandle, J. R. (2000). The student anti-sweatshop movement: Limits and potential. The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, 570, 92–103.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Melé, D. (2008). Corporate social responsibility theories. In A. Crane, A. McWilliams, D. Matten, J. Moon, & D. S. Siegel (Eds.), The Oxford handbook of corporate social responsibility (pp. 47–82). Oxford: Oxford University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Micheletti, M. (2003). Political virtue and shopping: Individuals, consumerism and collective action. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Micheletti, M., & Stolle, D. (2007). Mobilizing consumers to take responsibility for global social justice. The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, 611, 157–175.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Micheletti, M., & Stolle, D. (2008). Fashioning social justice through political consumerism, capitalism, and the internet. Cultural Studies, 22(5), 749–769.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Micheletti, M., Follesdal, A., & Stolle, D. (2003). Politics, products, and markets. Exploring political consumerism past and present. New Brunswick (USA) and London (UK): Transaction Publishers.

    Google Scholar 

  • Miller, D. (2012). Last nightshift in Savar. The story of the spectrum sweater factory collapse. Alnwick (UK): McNidder & Grace.

    Google Scholar 

  • Pellizzoni, L. (2004). Responsibility and environmental governance. Environmental Politics, 13(3), 541–565.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Ross, A. (Ed.). (1997). No sweat. Fashion, free trade and the rights of garment workers. New York: Verso.

    Google Scholar 

  • Shaw, L. (1997). The labor behind the label: Clean clothes campaigns in Europe. In A. Ross (Ed.), No sweat. Fashion, free trade and the rights of garment workers (pp. 215–220). New York: Verso.

    Google Scholar 

  • Sobczak, A. (2004). La responsabilité sociale de l’entreprise: Menace ou opportunité pour le droit du travail ? Relations industrielles/Industrial relations, 59(1), 26–51.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Star, S. L., & Griesemer, J. R. (1989). Institutional ecology, “translations” and boundary objects: Amateurs and professionals in Berkeley’s museum of vertebrate zoology, 1907–39. Social Studies of Science, 19(3), 387–420.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Thompson, D. (2008). À la recherche d’une responsabilité du contrôle. Revue française de science politique, 58(6), 933–951.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Vogel, D. (2005). The market for virtue: the potential and limits of corporate social responsibility. Washington: Brookings Institution Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Weissbrodt, D., & Kruger, M. (2003). Norms on the responsibilities of transnational corporations and other business enterprises with regard to human rights. American Journal of International Law, 97(4), 901–922.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Zelizer, V. A. (1994). The social meaning of money. New York: Basic Books.

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Acknowledgments

The author wishes to thank Gabrielle Varro for her assistance in the translation of the manuscript.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

Authors

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Pauline Barraud de Lagerie.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Barraud de Lagerie, P. Conflicts of Responsibility in the Globalized Textile Supply Chain. Lessons of a Tragedy. J Consum Policy 39, 397–416 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10603-016-9312-1

Download citation

  • Received:

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10603-016-9312-1

Keywords

Navigation