What are Fair Trade Practices
Fair trade practices exist to protect working conditions, wages, and benefits for farmers and factories around the world.
It is geared especially towards developing countries, many of whom are, sadly, the most exploited.
As a result, this may increase production costs slightly more—but the benefits significantly outweigh the costs. Workers get a chance to meet their basic needs, escape poverty, and lead a healthy and humane lifestyle.
What The Fair Trade organization does is, it requires factories and farmers to pay minimum living wages to match worker’s geographical living conditions among other important requirements.
Global Organic Textiles Standards
The latest version of the Global Organic Textiles (GOTs), version 4.0, incorporates many of the fair trade requirements that ensure ideal working conditions for farm and factory workers.
The Global Organic Textile Standards is the leading textile processing for organic fibers worldwide. It has ecological and social criteria that are backed up by independent certifications in order achieve a more transparent, reliable set of criteria for consumers to consider.
Some of key areas covered under fair trade are: (3, 4)
- Farmers and factories must use organic or environmentally sustainable practices when producing their products.
- Employers must adopt an open attitude and cannot hinder collective bargaining; ensuring workers have the ability to demand living wages and ethical treatment.
- Businesses and farmers must empower women, granting them access to health care, equal job rights, and protect them from getting harassed.
- A percentage of revenue must go towards the education of farm and factory workers. Employers must also help maintain enrollment and upgrade education systems to standard.
- Workers must be given access to proper healthcare, including access to medicine, doctors and proper nutrition.
- Farmers and workers must be provided market based tools from the association in order to stay out of poverty: such as access to trucks, tractors, and infrastructure to save money and obtain financing during harvest.
How We Use Fair Trade Practices
Our company supports healthy and ethical environments for workers.
At Organic Textiles LLC we only choose manufacturing factories that strictly follow and adhere Fair Trade criteria. To assure there manufacturers follow the criteria we audit these factories periodically.
Our purchasing and production choices are made with the well-being for the farmers under fair trade practices.
We also make it a priority to choose partners that continually upgrade their programs to ensure communities progress in an ethical and ideal economical growth.