Some of the key web sites with information on apparel retailers are listed below. You may also want to know more about the prevailing conditions and common abuses in particular countries or regions. For example, students staging a Sweatshop Fashion Show at the University of Toronto talked about conditions in Chinese factories while wearing school clothes made in China. Although they couldn t document the exact conditions under which those particular clothes were made, they were able to point to the prevailing conditions and common abuses in the region of China where most clothes are made. This allowed them to make the point that full public disclosure is necessary to ensure these abuses are not being committed at factories producing U of T clothing.
Exercises Doing research can be an educational tool in itself.
Involving people in basic research is a great introduction to Stop Sweatshops campaigns. Before initiating the Woolworth campaign in 1996, the Labour Behind the Label Coalition invited members to visit stores and do label research. Although it can be very labour-intensive, label research often yields important information about the companies you are investigating. In our store visits, we ask volunteers to list the countries where particular brand-name apparel is made, and then do a rough estimate of which countries and regions of the world are most and least represented. This exercise will not give you a scientific breakdown of where the company sources from, but it will give you a rough idea.