Fair Wear Foundation (FWF) is an international verification initiative dedicated to enhancing workers’ lives all over the world. They work closely with a growing number of companies that produce clothing and other sewn products and that take responsibility for their supply chain. Through sharing expertise, social dialogue, and strengthening industrial relations, FWF increases the effectiveness of companies to improve labor conditions in the garment industry.
Only better. As the gray fumes from passing vehicles pump in between the bars on the windows, blurring your vision slightly, the scenes that pass by are simply amazing. I’ve taken to riding around with a kerchief covering my nose and mouth, like most of the Indian women do.
Up around the hill station town of Munnar in the southern state of Kerala, we ran into these ladies who pick tea leaves. For a day’s work they’ll earn less than a dollar. The tea trade continues to keep the poorest people in the supply chain – the growers and pickers in developing countries – in poverty. Tea producers today receive only half of what they did 30 years ago for their crop.
“Surita Auntiiiieeee!”
This is a common call at our women’s cooperative in Mumbai and is usually shouted out in a high-pitched Hindi lilt. What is Surita Auntie’s job description?
