to be annoyed at cheap uniform ads

[greenfanta]

workers in bangladesh are protesting about wages that they can't even live on. they want a 300% wage rise so they can survive, but the govt will only allow 80% (is it me or are these %s mental!)yet the supermarkets are bragging about school shirts for £2. how LITTLE are they paying these people??! and since when do we expect to only pay £2? IS IT ME OR IS IT IMMORAL TO EXPLOIT WORKERS IN THE EAST?

By and large I don't think the overseas workforce gets paid any more if you buy a more expensive school shirt, though -- it's just that the middleman takes a bigger chunk of profit (and, to an extent, that more expensive shirts use better materials and production techniques, but that only accounts for a tiny bit of the price difference). I would be very surprised if the person actually making a £2 school shirt gets less money than a person making an £8 school shirt.

And the supermarkets actually rank pretty highly on ethical supply chain standards compared to many other high street shops.

Yes, it's immoral to exploit workers in the East, YANB at all U to think that. But YABU to think that they are only being exploited to make "cheap" clothes or that the £2 shirts are the worst offenders.

Another point tat came up on a recent thread is that A) expensive does not in any way equate to betetr humaniatrian conditions, and B) there is a compelte dearyh of information on where is really good to buy from (that is accessible to everyone not just Londoners).

And even then some people get landed with oddities in the way of colours etc and that compleicates things even further. We're lucky there but there are some weird shades locally.

Ultimately though as long as people with a bit of spare cash shop in ASda etc I won;t moralise about the very poorest in this country doing so. Yes we're lucky, we have support systems: we also have a terrible recession and you know what, what support there is takes ages to kick in: here atm people losing their jobs face a 6 week wait for benefit processing. If that means they pick Asda for their uniforms so they can meet the rent I can understand that. Humanitarian works both ways- interest in people abroad and here.

Just because they are charging us this NOW, does that mean the workers were paid any more when consumers were charged more? Were they not just making more of a profit back in the day?
Maybe they have figured that folk were using swap shops and hand me downs instead of buying new - but wait! No need now! Because now you can afford to buy 2 uniforms instead of just 1!

YANBU, it is shocking.

It's the same with everything though - if we just stopped at clothes manufacturers we would be blind. Because in EVERY big industry there's a fall guy - whether it's the poor children and slave labour, factory farmed chicken, mass produced cows, hard-worked miners who put their lives in danger to get diamonds, quarry industry to get marble, plastics industry in china who dump their mess in rivers.....the list is endless.

Sorry to be depressing

I'm sure when I was a child uniform used to cost comparatively more. We have all got used to the idea of 'fast fashion' and now it seems acceptable to say 'some people can't afford more than £2' when that just can't be true. Historically new clothes have cost more than this (I mean adjusting for inflation and price indexing and all that) but people have still been able to pay - clothes were treated more carefully, expected to last longer, handed down etc. It's the same kind of argument you get about cheap meat - 'some people can only afford a £2 chicken' - well, chicken used to cost a lot more and be better quality and people had different expectations - ie that a chicken had to last for 3/4 meals.

this notion that charity shops,car boot sale and 2nd hand school clothes are right size, look nice and are plentiful when needed. and should be bought by those on a poor budget to appease the conscience of others is risible

do some really think if faced with choice of new ,right size and in stock at asda,that parents have to scrabble about at 2nd hand shop hope right size,colour, good wear

so are new school clothes only the preserve of those that can afford it ethically?

many people get by on a paltry budget so asda etc hits the spot

and others are consumers who can and do chose where to spend their money

In my day[old] primary school children didn't wear uniforms though ..neither of my oldest daughters wore it and I certainly didn't as a child ..it was only at secondary level ..

I refuse to believe that any high street store, in this country, isn't selling clothes made in a sweat shop.

But in Ye Olden Days (and still at some schools) the schools would hold big second hand uniform sales -- no scrabbling around required, you knew you could get everything your child needed for his/her specific school under one roof, things were generally sorted by size and there was lots available. And it was what you did for school uniform if you were short of money or just wanted to economise. This was before the environmental movement really got going, too.

And yet now (in spite of most people being more ethically/environmentally aware) very few schools seem to do this -- so yes, it becomes a lot more of a chore to try to assemble school uniform second hand.

never heard of school sales,as a kid we went to asda

charity shops where i live are pricey and certainly cannot competitively match asda on price.

i do find this notion that low income families should scrabble about go buy 2nd hand, despite new cheap uniform within budget being available and accessible to them.is that really ok?the stigmatisation alone is a bit galling.all the poor families traipse about in 2nd hand, car boot sale.whilst thse who dont go to asda etc get to wear a nice new uniform

the working conditions are appalling but to expect a sector of society to be denied chance to appropriately clothe their children within budget is not on

The school my dds go to do a 2nd hand school uniform shop which is open every Friday afternoon. It is great and lots of people use it. I doubt this will happen when they go to secondary though.

I completely agree that paying higher prices doesn't mean workers get higher wages. Looking at ProfessorLayton's list, you could (hypothetically at least) buy your DCs school shirts from Moss Bros and jumper from Edinburgh Woolen Mill at a cost of about £50, yet it's less ethically sourced than something you can get from ASDA or Primark for a tenth of that.

It's the slice that the companies take as opposed to the price paid by the consumer which makes the difference. How can the average consumer know who is taking the share of the money? I also agree that for many retailers the uniforms will be loss leaders, so the amount paid doesn't actually reflect the cost of making the uniform. It's a minefield.

You see, right there is a distaste for second hand which I find risible. DS's uniform is mostly second hand. His friends' uniforms were mostly new. Within two days they all looked the same. Second hand doesn't mean it comes with huge ink patches and holes or a bell to ring with a sign saying "Unclean". It doesn't mean it's "inappropriate".

When I was a child most of the people we knew wore second hand clothes most of the time. There were established pathways for how clothes passed along (so in terms of girls' clothes I would get stuff passed to me from the daughter of a friend of our next door neighbour who was a couple of years older than me (I think her parents tended to buy new) and when I had worn them they would go to my cousin who was three years younger than me, and then on from there. I don't remember where my brothers' clothes came from, but after they had both worn them they would go to Peter, who was a couple of years younger than my younger brother and lived down the road, and then we'd see them on a succession of local children over the next few years. And there were regular jumble sales to supplement the established channels. It wasn't stigmatising, it wasn't inappropriate, and the stuff was perfectly "nice".

I think these days eBay has probably taken over a lot of the stuff that used to be passed on at no cost or (via jumble sales) at low cost.

As a matter of interest, is a younger sibling who wears hand-me-down uniform from an elder sibling also stigmatised and denied he chance to be appropriately clothed? Or does that only apply if the previous person who wore the uniform had no blood connection?

Erm pinnies for Art at school? FGS, why not an old shirt of Dad's? That's what we all did when I was at school. My dad's shirts were HUGE too....

Many people just won't DO second hand any more, and when you have new for £2, why would they?

Vicious circle, we are creating a demand that is perpetuating the need for ever cheaper products. The Supermarkets are telling us this too, so we add to the disposability of cheap clothing. Ah, it only cost £2, so if it get's ripped, I'll bin it.

We live in a disposable, entitled and judgemental society.

When I was at school, there were no brands, there were no right name for a trainer, if you had new trainers it was great. Nowadays, if you have new trainers, but they don't have the right name on them, you are mocked for it.

I would imagine it would be worse now than it was then for children to go to school in second hand stuff.

I agree some clarity on this from the supermarkets would be most useful!

YANBU.

If anyone's interested in doing something about it do what I did and sign up to campaign with ActionAid - see here and here.

WRT to the Good Old days- in the good old days when I was a child no primary ahd any uniform, so you didn't need poushging two weardrobes, and if you wore charity shop clothes you got a smack from the school bully at breaktime.

My parents used to struggle to clothe us all and at Comp the consequens were horrid; I rmember teraing mys choolbag so my parents sent me in with a carrier next day; horrible teahcers made me parade over the stage in front of assembly to demonstrate the rsults of being scruggy and a mess . Then they placed me in detention for a few days.

Better huh?

The idea should eb that people save to buy the best theyc an afford but even that is not always going to work. If your new job pakcs in tomorrow are you then going to say 'OK I don't have any claim to redundancy pay and it's going to be six weeks before I see a penny of benefits but hey, let's spend what I ahve on Trutex gear' or are you going to thank the ehavens that there is the option of cheap plus food, and please God you'll try and do better next time?

If everyone who can makes the most ethical decisions they can, then the idnustry to catch up with the people with money and look at fairtrade. If we start railing aginst those trying to ame the best decisions in often a difficult circumstance then we've just turned the battle on a different group of vulnerable people when actually it needs to be firmly and squarely aimed at those who manufacture and retail.

why should poorer families have to settle for 2nd hand and ebay when they can buy new at asdas.some of you live in la la land where charity shops and ebay are bulging with great quality clothes at pennies just in right sizes and exactly when needed.

where i live charity shops are not bargaintastic, and to an extent why should they,they need to maximise their profits too

i see it always the poorest being advised to scrabble about at ebay and charity shop,presumably whilst those with disposable income salve their conscience elsewhere. if someone can buy new at asdas for £2 cant see any reason to buy 2nd hand

If I decide to buy from somewhere that doesn't use sweatshops:

a) I will have less money to pay mortgage, buy food
b) It will have absolutely NO affect on said sweatshop

If everyone decides to buy from somewhere that doesn't use sweatshops

a) Sweatshop will shut down people will go from having low wage to NO wage

or

b) Sweatshop will pay staff more in order to not be classed as sweatshop. As workers will have more disposable income price of food/accomodation in their country will increase to take advantage of this = worker will be no better off!

WRT to the if you go to schol in trianers with the wrong name- huh? My kids (ds1 is year 6) havben;t a clue what the right trainers would be.

he wears Puma, atm: becuase it seemed like a reliable name when I bought them second hand on ebay (and he needs decent as he runs for the school).

I think a lot of these perceptions about clothes do exist, but only in some palces. Here it doesn't factor. My boys accept second hand as a viable and sensible route to getting goods- ds2 wants an Ipod for Christmas. He has ben given the choice of a cheapo unit or a proper ipod second hand and chosen the latter ebcuase he has been taught to appreicate quality over newness (and we have the deposit on it in cash convertors already).

But I'm older than you, Sancti and the vast majority of the primary schools near us had uniform. Maybe it helped at mine that it was a Catholic primary school so (generalising horribly, but it did) had a tendency towards larger families and so in any class there was a high proportion of younger siblings wearing hand-me-down uniform anyway?

I did get comments from other girls at secondary school, but really only once the uniform rules were relaxed so it became more obvious if you were dressed "differently" from the social norm.

i'm glad I can sew.

I'm planning to buy one set of branded school uniform and when that's worn out to cut off the logo and sew it onto new clothes (the well-made, ethical, made-to-last type)

i do think it's shocking the prices we pay for the sweat-shop clothes, too. but not every factory in those countries can be on the fair-trade system, and it means that people would be out of work and forced to break their children's limbs etc in order to send them begging so that their family can afford to eat.

until the situation can be made fairer all round, we are in a vicious circle.

i don't think it's down to cost to families in this country, as others have said, 2nd hand uniforms are readily available.

That listed posted before in intriguing

M&S offer a loss eladser style unform on their website and advertise it, yet they are rated the most highly on there!

Yet there is no rating for trutex, one of the biggest names in schoolwear, someone I certainly use a lot for the more unusual aspects of the school uniform (like the rbight yellow Polo shirts school suddenly decided to introduce in June).

This debate also completely misses another aspect: logo'd clothes.

Most schools now make cash from them and whilst theyc an't refuse others actively advocate their purchase- our school sends letters home saying 'Uniform is available in X but I have legally to tell you that you may choose non logo's items of the same colour and style. I would also however like to point out that unifirmity and good rpesentation are central to the ethos of the school'.

A fairly big hint, no?

Personally i'd like to see the school offer badges I can attach to M&S or wherever but until they do, we're stuck at Ye Olde overprivced shop for sweaters etc (charging 6 times what Asda do).

Actually, a very kind Mum handed me a pile of hand me downs for my boys at the end of term so this eyar I am free of the specialist shop (thank goodness, everything swims on them!). But I am lucky and presumably obviously poor.

PL they introduced uniform where we were when my sister was there- so about 1986 I guess? By whcih time I was at comp. That was a townwide initiative (though rather horribly my Mum made me wear uniform of a colour she happened to like all through Juniors, I was the only one in navy and tie with the others in jeans. I wonder if I can sue for that? )

Passing down isn;t an option here, we just do it, as far as we can- ds3 is in another school and I fully anticipate that they will attend 3 different comps between them. Even then it's hard though- Head has just changed school colours from grey to navy (with some reaosn, as infants use navy and there was an anomally fpor eyars where girls got to wear same uniform with just a differnetly logo'd sweater, as Juniors ahd navy for them, and boys needed an entire change of uniform colour).

DS1 is exempt from change as he is entering year 6, ds2 technically is but would be the only one in grey so I have acquiesced.

Actually, rather strangely it is navy except they stuck with grey trousers; that will look odd no? Used to be grey with grey or navy with navy.

Bet we get a letter saying the grey itrews are an admin error in week two of term, that seems to be standard for new head.

Nickel arese cond hand uniforms readuly available?

Our school never did unifrom sales, ever. We ahve a veryw ell off intake generally so no call apart from a few of us poor cousins.

The charity shops bin logo'd items as they don't sell.

IME they aren't easy to come by at all if you don't have family etc to pass down.

Oh yes, only one shop in town that sells the overpriced logo'd top used to piss me off ..

Until recently our logo shop was a good 20 miles away! Not exactly the closest shop- we're near a city, it was past that and another besides!

One good change the Head made thankfully: within 6 miles.