Ethical Sourcing & MEC: Globalizing Equality

Each minute a production line is not moving widgets from one assembly station to the next is costly to the factory. That’s because money is only made when people and machines are busy assembling components.  When they’re idle profits are not being generated while costs continue to accrue as the factory pays for the ongoing electricity, machinery and people.  Hence, the immense pressure to keep people and machines busy in factories throughout the world.

Last month, we bucked this trend by requiring our Canadian suppliers to shut down their production for one hour while we conducted worker rights training on the production floor.  Over four hundred immigrant women sewers, who make about 26% of MEC’s branded merchandise, were introduced to basic human right concepts.  (MEC absorbed 50% of the factory’s cost for the down time).

The training we conducted in Canada is identical to the one we want to give to our Asian factories.  It centers on the inalienable right of a worker to a safe work environment, proper pay and a workplace free of harassment.  These standards are universal and apply to every worker regardless of their nationality and occupation.   Just as everyone is entitled to these rights, everyone is obligated to protect and champion them.  This "take" and "give" approach is at the philosophical heart of human rights.  We in the Western world are extraordinarily lucky in that our governments have put in place multiple measures to protect our rights.  In the emerging economies, people are less fortunate.  Their respective governments have less interest and fewer mechanisms to advance what we enjoy.  With this in view it is incumbent of us to not lose sight of the inequality around us and to actively promote the rights of individuals everywhere.  If we truly did this, we would surely globalize equality.