Directed Inquiry Unit: Morality in Purchasing

For your teacher’s Labour Practices Project explanation, click here.

1. Follow the links to the site http://slaveryfootprint.org/ and complete the survey. Create a NoodleTools Project, and then create a citation for this website. Make a note card connected to the citation and answer the following questions:

What issue is the website focusing on?
What is the point of view or bias being expressed? Consider the message.
Does the form or style influence the message you take from the website?
What techniques are used to persuade you?
Who sponsors this website?
Do you think the information on it is reliable? Explain why or why not.

2. Research your company’s labour practices through site specific searches. See the note below (in green) explaining how to conduct a site-specific search using Google’s web browser. Create a citation for each website you find and use the Annotation box to answer the noted questions.

A. Start at the company website. Answer the following:

1. What does the company say about themselves with regard to their labour practices and fair trade?
2. Does the company identify the source (location) of the raw materials used to create their products?
3. Does the company speak about standards they follow with respect to the labour involved in extracting the raw materials?
4. Where is the product manufactured?
5. Is there an explanation of labour standards with respect to the manufacturing process?

Note: You can search the company’s website using Google’s search engine by conducting a site specific search.

For example, the web address for Mountain Equipment Company is www.mec.ca.
If I want to search MEC’s site to learn about their policies with respect to labour, I type the following into the Google search box: labour practices site:mec.ca Example –>

B. Conduct a .org search (site:.org) looking for an NGO‘s (nonprofit organization) evaluations of the company’s labour practices.

Using MEC as an example: labour practices mec site:.org

C. Conduct a government (.gov or .gc.ca) or UN (un.org) site search to see what they say.

Using MEC as an example: labour practices mec site:.gov or labour practices mec site:.un.org

D. Do all three of these sites agree with each other? If there is a difference, what is the difference? And, why would these sites disagree with each other?

3. Now conduct a site specific search of the Globe and Mail and the New York Times to see what newspapers are saying about your company’s labour practices. For example:

Globe and Mail: (company name) labour practices site:theglobeandmail.com
New York Times: (company name) labour practices site:nytimes.com

NOTE: If you are coming across articles that are no longer accessible, try copying and pasting the URL into the Wayback Machine.

4. Finally, use the Global Issues in Context database to learn more about the issue and company you are researching.

Additional Resources

International Documents Supporting Human Rights

Declaration of the Rights of the Child, 1959 (in straight forward language)
Declaration of the Rights of the Child, 1959 (original text)
Convention on the Rights of the Child, 1989 (original text)
Convention on the Rights of the Child, 1989 (in child-friendly language)
Universal Declaration of Human Rights
International Labour Organization (ILO). Provides definition of forced labour and offers supporting documents.
International Labour Organization. Report that investigates “Profits and Poverty: The Economics of Forced Labour.” It explores the underlying factors that drive forced labour.
International Labour Organization. Facts and figures on forced labour, human trafficking, and slavery.
International Labour Organization. Child labour statistics, 2020. Full report looks at global estimates for the child labour trends in 2020 and the global effort to end child labour.

Government Organizations Assessing Labour Practices

US Department of State: Trafficking in Persons Report 2022. Scroll down to page 31 “Human Trafficking Defined”. Also, starting on page 2, read “Victims’ Stories” in photographic boxes and “Country Narratives”, starting on page 77 (includes Canada). Tier placements (data) and regional maps begin on page 69.
U.S. Department of Labor’s 2022 “List of Goods produced by Child Labor or Forced Labor”.
Additionally, U.S. Department of Labor “Identifying Goods Produced with Inputs Produced with Forced Labor or Child Labor“ offers additional supply chain research on Lithium-Ion Batteries, Palm Oil Products, and Solar Products.
Government of Canada: Human Trafficking

Companies that Own the Brands:

Behind the Brands / Oxfam / 2017

Many consumer brands are interconnected, owned by industry suppliers and even countries. Below are categories that show parent companies and their many subsidiaries.

Food and Beverage

The “Big Ten” (see infographic above): Associated British Foods (ABF), Coca-Cola, Danone, General Mills, Kellogg, Mars, Mondelez International (previously Kraft Foods), Nestlé, PepsiCo and Unilever
Who owns the brands you love and how do they score? An interactive and informational quiz

Fashion Houses
The selection below of fashion houses show how vastly different subsidiaries are. LVMH, for example, owns lines from clothing to food and beverage to resorts.

LVMH owns 75 different houses in 6 sectors. Here are some examples: Fashion, Jewelry, Food and Beverage, Resorts, Yacht Builders, Magazines, Cosmetics (e.g. Louis Vuitton, Fendi, Celine, Givenchy, Dior, Kenzo, Marc Jacobs, Bvlgari, TAG Heuer, Zenith, Sephora, DFS, Moet & Chandon, Veuve Cliquot, Hennessy)
Kering houses (e.g. Gucci, Balenciaga, Alexander McQueen, Bottega Veneta)
Gap Inc. (e.g. Gap, Banana Republic, Old Navy, Athleta)

Cars
Listed here are each major car brand and its parent corporation, including some retired brands whose products are still readily available as used cars.

Who owns which car brands, explanation and visual (2023)
Who owns which car brands (Consumer Reports, 2024)
14 Car companies control 54 combined brands (Infographic, 2019)

Jewelry
Parent companies that own jewelers are below, but also linked are mining companies and even countries.

Signet Jewelers (e.g. Kay Jewelers, Zales, Jared, Peoples). Look under “Banners” at the top for a full list of jewelers.
Richemont (e.g. Cartier, Van Cleef & Arpels). Look under “Our Maisons” at the top for a full list.
DeBeers, 85% of which is owned by Anglo American, one of the world’s largest mining companies. The remaining 15% is owned by the government of Botswana.

Other Resources:

Anti Slavery: What we do (includes specific reference to cotton, trafficking, forced and bonded labour, etc)
Center for Biological Diversity (The Revelator): “The Surprising Link Between Climate Change and Human Trafficking“
Stop Child Labour: About child labour, including textiles, shoes/leather, gold, natural stone, seeds, coffee
Shine Global: The Harvest La Cosecha (2011 film on migrant labor). Article that explains the importance of the film.
White Gold: Film that investigates cotton farming in Uzbekistan
The Washington Post: “China compels Uighurs to work in shoe factory that supplies Nike” (accessed through Gale Power Search database)
Foreign Policy Association. Modern Slavery and Human Trafficking, 2020
Human Rights Watch. Exposed the “Hidden Cost of Jewelry“ in 2018. Published a follow-up article to how 15 companies responded in “Sparkling Jewels, Opaque Supply Chains“ in 2020. Explores human rights in supply chains and the responsibility of jewelry companies.
Know the Chain. Investigates, reports on, and ranks companies and their use of forced labour.
- Article on forced labour risks in electronic supply chains and how to eradicate forced labour in electronics, 2018
- Information and Communications Technology, 2022 report
- Food and Beverage, 2023 report
Ethical Consumer. Based on the research of 40,000 companies, brands and products, website provides shopping guides and ethical ratings system
World Benchmarking Alliance. WBA develops in close collaboration with the Alliance a series of benchmarks assessing 2,000 of the world’s most influential companies, ranking and measuring them on their contributions to the SDGs. To search for your company directly, go to “Content” in the upper right, and click “Companies”. From here, scroll to the search bar, located beneath the phrase “SDG 2000”.

Further Reading:

UNICEF: Child Labour: Check topics on right side. Provides data and an interactive downloadable dataset.
Our World in Data: Child Labour. Provides history, current global views, and data on child labour.
Child labour related to carpet industry:
- “Young Activist’s Death Hits Pakistani Carpet Sales”
- Infographic on child labour in Nepal
- “10,000 children estimated to work in Nepal’s carpet industry”
- GoodWeave: Advocates for social change dedicated to ending child labour, forced labour, and bonded labour in global supply chains
Clothing:
- Labour Behind the Label evaluates a number of clothing manufacturers — The Gap, Levi Strauss, Hugo Boss, H&M, and Under Armour, to name a few for its labour practices: Tailored Wages UK 2019. Also, see the “Reports” for item specific reports (cotton, shoes, etc).
- Green America: Sweatshop Free Clothing (Provides a list of links to more resources at the top of the page, i.e. “Labor“). Also see their Toxic Textiles Scorecard and Toxic Textiles 2019 report.
- Know the Chain. Report on Apparel and Footwear, 2023.
- Which brands are putting people before the planet? Search:
  - - Baptist World Aid allows you to search for brands and see their results.
    - 2022 Ethical Fashion Guide offers analysis of over 600 brands.
    - 2022 Ethical Fashion Report and 2022 Ethical Fashion Report Appendix provide grades (brand index) for multiple brands, and explain what is needed for change.