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For Ald. Pawar Anti-Sweatshop Efforts Are Personal

By David Byrnes | November 14, 2014 9:50am | Updated on November 14, 2014 9:51am
 Ald. Pawar is being honored for his work combating sweat shops.
Ald. Pawar is being honored for his work combating sweat shops.
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Facebook/Ameya Pawar

LINCOLN SQUARE — For Ald. Ameya Pawar (47th), the recent legislation he led to combat sweat shops was a personal one.

“My grandfather worked in the garment industry in India for years and never saw a decent wage,” said Pawar. “It’s time we realized people are worth more than the sum of what they produce.”

Pawar is being presented a “Changemaker Award” Friday by the Chicago Fair Trade board for his efforts in getting the City Council to pass the anti-sweatshop ordinance, which requires that all clothing vendors for city employees, such as police and firemen, to disclose from where they bought their clothing, and to only buy their materials “from a humane supply chain.”

The award "is presented to someone who goes above and beyond in promoting Fair Trade,” said Katherine Bissell Cordova, director of Chicago Fair Trade.

Cordova describes Fair Trade as "an alternative business model" with its core principles being "transparency, fair wages and environmental sustainability." It’s a collection of businesses trying to make sure their producers — coffee growers, sugar farmers, tailors, craftspeople, etc. — all get a fair slice of the pie.

In order to get the certified Fair Trade label, which is distributed by umbrella groups like Fair Trade USA and Fairtrade International (FLO-CERT), all parties involved must agree to a set of standards. Those standards include ensuring that the product is produced by small-scale operations using ecologically sound means, that the product can be traced directly back to its geographic point of origin, and that business decisions are made democratically between producers and their buyers.

One of the main criticisms of the Fair Trade movement and its representative organizations is how hard it is to become certified and how producers that can meet the Fair Trade standards are often not small, needy businesses.

Economist Dr. Peter Griffiths, in his 2011 Journal of Business Ethics article “How Fair Trade isn’t Fair,” wrote that importers buy from the cooperatives that are efficient at meeting the standards and can handle the required paperwork.

"Inevitably the most healthy, skillful, educated farmers are most likely to do this, and they are the richest,” Griffiths said.

Cordova thinks the high standards are necessary — or at least, preferable to the mass-market alternative.

“We start to need to raise the bar, and the more people demand Fair Trade [standards], the more producers are brought in," she said.

She acknowledged "the system has its flaws" but said that "it’s still better than the old way, where no one was paid a decent wage for what they produced.”

Chicago has more local Fair Trade certified business and products than any other city in the United States, according to a report by FLO-CERT.

Pawar's “sweatfree” ordinance becomes effective in January, though he acknowledges "there’s no way to completely legislate bad behavior."

But, he adds, "Chicago is the most [Fair-Trade] progressive city in the world."

"It’s time to put our money where our mouth is,” he said.

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