The global apparel industry is broken and only urgent, drastic surgery can fix it. I am not talking about another initiative or another public relations exercise. I am talking about deep, systemic change to be agreed by all involved—by brands, by suppliers, governments, unions and NGOs.

Why do I think this? Let us look at the evidence. In the past week several news stories have made headlines around the world. All are interlinked and, together, they paint a picture of an industry which continues to serve one set of interests at the expense of another.

One story is when the latest lockdown ended in the UK, shoppers were said to be queuing in the middle of the night, in the freezing cold, in anticipation of fashion brands opening its doors. People are supposed to be struggling financially in the west, but the fast fashion industry marches onwards. The fashion brands and retailers have had a similarly positive response since reopening stores. Nothing seems to stand in their way.

Story number two concerns a company which I have worked with in the past—Arcadia, which owns British brands Top Man, Top Shop and Burton. Arcadia has this week gone into administration, as has department store, Debenhams. Both have been struggling for some time, and have been hit hard by the coronavirus pandemic. The potential bankruptcy of these two companies will hit hundreds of garment suppliers in Bangladesh. When the liquidators come to pay creditors, suppliers will be way down the list. Many will be lucky to receive anything at all and will take a massive financial hit.

They may complain but they also know that this is just how it is in our industry. In Bangladesh we are at the bottom of the food chain, just like our garment producing compatriots in India, Cambodia, Myanmar and so on.

Taken together both the stories illustrate the completely lopsided nature of the global fashion industry—and tell us why something has to change.

How can it be that in one part of the world, shoppers are queuing through the night to purchase clothing while in another part of the world the manufacturers are suffering by not receiving their legitimate payment. How has our industry reached this state of affairs? The very people who are bearing the brunt are the most vulnerable group of the fashion supply chain—workers.

Failure does not seem to be an option for many western retailers and department stores. In recent years, we have also seen the likes of Sears Corp, Peacocks and Forever 21 in administration or undergoing restructuring. Why? Because they were not making money. They restructure and in that process a lot of their debts with suppliers—yes, that’s people like me—are written off. Then they return and the whole process starts again.

Nobody should begrudge apparel brands and retailers for their success. But we need to think very carefully about how we can ensure the benefits of this success are shared right along the supply chain. If an industry has one part in which companies are making huge profits while in another part, workers are going hungry, something has clearly gone very wrong. Something is out of kilter.

This brings me to the final point relating to Arcadia. When a brand goes bust—as several have during this pandemic—it is always the suppliers and their workers who suffer the most.

We can all also see why retailers are struggling, and they have my sympathy (in some cases). What I fail to understand, however, is how there is not some kind of protection in place for workers when a major brand goes bust. For some time now, there have been calls for some kind of fund or pot which brands would pay into as a part of doing business with garment factories in Asia. This fund would be used to ensure workers are paid severance and legally owed wages in the case of insolvency.

This may sound extreme but we have already seen that brands simply cannot be trusted to protect the workers in their supply chains through voluntary codes of conduct. Yes, there are many brands and retailers who are not only trendsetters but also pioneers in global business in responsibility and practicing ethics as well as taking care of every member including workers. But there are also many who do not care—some of the more glaring examples we have seen during this Covid-19 pandemic.

As suppliers, we cannot depend on the goodwill of brands. It has become clear now that our industry needs binding legislation and supply chain regulation to hold brands to account for respecting human rights in their supply chain.

We cannot as an industry keep talking about things and saying this or that will change in the future. We have been saying these things for decades. Words are all well and good but, sadly for garment workers, they don’t put food on the table.

Mostafiz Uddin is the Managing Director of Denim Expert Limited. He is also the Founder and CEO of Bangladesh Apparel Exchange (BAE).

This story was originally published by The Daily Star, Bangladesh

During the past few months, I had worked on a documentary for the BBC which looks at the impact of the coronavirus pandemic on the apparel industry of Bangladesh. That documentary caught me at an exceptionally low ebb. I was struggling amid the cancellation of orders and some brands being unwilling to pay for orders which had already been shipped.

Since that time, things briefly did pick up again for our industry as retail outlets began to reopen in the West, following huge self-imposed lockdowns. Since mid-summer, most European markets and the US, the main destinations for Bangladesh apparel exports, have been open for business. I was hopeful that we might be over the worst of the coronavirus in terms of economic impacts, although I was always aware it was going to be a bumpy road ahead.

In recent weeks, however, the mood has changed once again. Brands are putting major orders on hold. I have witnessed this first-hand, as well as hearing anecdotal evidence of this across the industry. The reason for this is clear: as we head into winter, and schools and other educational establishments return from summer holidays, coronavirus cases are once again on the rise. In the wake of over-flowing hospital beds, governments feel they have no choice but to impose lockdowns again in an attempt to control the virus.

This is not to complain about the brands. Since the pandemic started, there have been good brands and bad brands in terms of payments—some have been more supportive of their suppliers than others, and that will always be the way.

Instead, I want to raise the alarm bells for what a second lockdown might mean for Bangladesh’s apparel industry and, more importantly, its workers. In the BBC documentary alluded to above, it was made very clear that many garment workers suffered a lot in the wake of the pandemic in March. Some spoke on film of their fears not being about the coronavirus killing them but about poverty if the factories where they are employed could not continue their operation.

I read that for most people, coronavirus is not a serious illness. Its mortality rate among 20 to 30-year olds—the core demographic of garment workers in Bangladesh—is tiny. Coronavirus kills mainly people who are over 65 and the obese and/or people with serious underlying health conditions. I am not trying to downplay this virus which, after all, has killed a great many people around the world. Rather, I wish to bring into focus the problems facing Bangladesh in the here and now.

Bangladesh has a fairly young population and obesity is certainly not a problem in our country compared to western nations. Bangladesh has had just over 6,000 deaths from Covid-19. By way of comparison, the UK, a country with a far smaller population, has had almost 50,000 deaths. The US has had more than 200,000 deaths from Covid-19.

This, then, is the cruel irony: while our customer countries, with their ageing populations and serious obesity issues, face the Grim Reaper of coronavirus hanging over their heads, in Bangladesh our fear is about something entirely different—poverty and associated starvation. The coronavirus might not kill us directly, but its impacts on global apparel supply chains threaten the very fabric of our industry and its people.

Our apparel industry was teetering on the brink in autumn. We thought we were through the worst but further lockdowns in our key markets this winter could take us right over the edge and into the abyss. The impacts on workers and their families do not bear thinking about. I fear a future in which many will face destitution if this crisis goes on for many more months.

Is there a solution? As well as support from the Bangladesh government, we need support from the global community to provide a safety net for garment workers. We as an industry have talked for years about inclusiveness and fairness, and now is the time for all of us to stand up and be counted on these issues.

Are we, as an industry, serious about the Sustainable Development Goals? SDG number 8 is about promoting sustained, inclusive and sustainable economic growth, full and productive employment and decent work for all.

At full employment, the apparel industry in Bangladesh employs more than four million people, many of them young women. Without support, our industry faces a financial Armageddon, with the potential loss of hundreds, perhaps even thousands, of factories and millions of jobs.

With no safety net for those right at the bottom of our industry pyramid, the ramifications are poverty, malnutrition and even death. An industry that prides itself on sustainability, and whose main actors have repeatedly cited the SDGs in recent years, cannot afford to stand by and allow to happen the slow-motion car-crash we are seeing in supply chains.

Mostafiz Uddin is the Managing Director of Denim Expert Limited. He is also the Founder and CEO of Bangladesh Apparel Exchange (BAE).
Email: mostafiz@denimexpert.com

This story was originally published by The Daily Star, Bangladesh

Whenever there is a discussion about trade, investments, exports and economic growth, quite often much focus is placed upon infrastructure as the core challenge of our export growth. But is it the only hurdle?

There is no denying that we have a number of challenges in the area of infrastructure and trade logistics. Since the middle of last year the Chittagong port has been facing a tough situation as its activities were crippled by congestion and lack of handling equipment. Dhaka airport is also confronted with many challenges such as excessive delay in clearing the samples from customs and embargo by the European Union and a few other countries on direct cargo flights from Dhaka airport.

Lack of gas supply, industrial land for investment and deep sea port are some of the major tailbacks at the moment. The government is trying hard to overcome the infrastructural gap, but there is clearly no quick fix to these problems.

The good news is that there are a number of areas within our reach which can be explored to enhance our competitiveness and capability. Investing in human resources is one such area which is still largely untapped, particularly in mid-level management of our apparel industry which accounts for about 82 percent of the country’s total export earnings. Bangladesh is living in an era of demographic dividend. Our literacy rate and access to information technology are increasing rapidly. And we have a huge pool of talented youth as well.

Industrialisation is the major platform to utilise our human resources. It’s very unfortunate that we still lack in certain areas of professionalism—limiting our potential. The impact of such deficiencies will be felt severely by the industry in the near future when key factors like sustainability, innovation and automation will be playing a major role. The growing need for sustainability and optimisation in meeting customer demands will continue to drive our garment factories to become more adaptive and environment-friendly.

It’s true that the apparel industry of Bangladesh has come a long way and we are now the second largest apparel-exporting country in the world with 6.36 percent of global market share. However, the industry still has a lot more potential to grow and thrive. Taking the apparel industry of Bangladesh to the next level greatly hinges upon ensuring qualified and skilled human resources in the middle managements of the factories. The following are some suggestions.

Fast reaction

One of the biggest challenges of the industry is the delay in response by factories as buyers raise queries. When a buyer places a query to Hong Kong, Tunisia and Bangladesh, they usually get complete feedback within one day from Hong Kong; for Tunisia it may take 2-3 days; whereas in the case of Bangladesh, the common scenario is that the merchandising team ends up with 5-10 new questions of their own. This results in immediate loss of opportunities and a poor impression in the long run. Time is perhaps the most important factor in the global fashion business and there is no scope to waste time through back-and-forth communication.

Better services

We can learn from the nations who have done well in the first phase of industrialisation and set examples of progress in terms of advanced sectors. For example, Hong Kong was one of the major global manufacturers and suppliers of apparel in the 70s and now it is the global hub of fashion business. Its gradual transformation in every aspect of professionalism—starting from technical skills to all other professional skills—sets them apart. So even though apparel is not one of the primary products made in Hong Kong anymore, they are still a major player in the fashion market. Bangladesh should be able to take inspiration from such success stories, take advantage of its human resources and transform the industry.

Soft skills

There is a serious lack in soft skills in presentation, negotiation, communication, etc., in our mid-level management, especially merchants. A confidence gap always prevails due to difficulties in communication between parties—which is why we often see expatriate professionals in our factories and in buyers’ liaison offices. Expat professionals may be good for the transfer of knowledge to the local workforce. And we need them to bridge the cultural divide as well. But the important question to ask is, do the locals have the attitude to learn from them? Hong Kong too had expats; and it still does but to a lesser extent.

There is no doubt that the export sector, especially the garment industry, will be the key driver of our economic growth towards becoming a middle-income country by 2021. If we want our apparel industry to play its due role in Bangladesh’s journey towards prosperity, there is no alternative but to equip our people with the best knowledge and skills. Our education system needs a complete overhaul, especially in the area of behavioural skills, to produce some of the best graduates who are going to play a vital role in global business and international trade.

Mostafiz Uddin is the managing director of Denim Expert Limited, and founder and CEO of Bangladesh Apparel Exchange (BAE).

This story was originally published by The Daily Star, Bangladesh