Blockseminar mit Einführungssitzung Fast Fashion and Labour Rights

This seminar deals with globalization and its consequences for strategies of labour rights activism taking the global clothing industry as an example. The fashion business has been one of the pioneers of globalization. The way that clothing production is managed today has a direct impact on the lives of workers who produce garments and shoes worldwide. The Fast Fashion business model builds on the overexploitation of human beings, predominantly women. In its first part, this seminar analyses the way the fast fashion business is fashioned. We will look at supply chain patterns, the price-makeup of a t-shirt and power imbalances along supply chains, and discuss examples of supply chains into countries where seminar participants come from. In this way we will jointly develop a Global Political Economy of the clothing and shoe industry. Building on this analysis, in the second part we will ask for strategies, alliances and interventions. What can labour movements do, which discourses to use, which alliances to forge? We will discuss new strategies like supply chain organizing, connecting with the human rights discourse and movements and regional approaches to wage setting (Asia Floor Wage Alliance). We will get to know a global labour and human rights movement to improve working conditions in the global fashion industry the Clean Clothes Campaign. FB 05 Gesellschaftswissenschaften Uni Kassel WiSe 2016/17 Global Political Economy Musiolek Bettina