“The Low Price” of the textile discounter KiK – consequences for labour conditions in textile factories in Bangladesh: Difference between revisions

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==== 2.1 Geographic and social information  ====
==== 2.1 Geographic and social information  ====


In Bangladesh lives a population of about 164,4<ref>Report about human population 2010. http://www.weltbevoelkerung.de/pdf/dsw_datenreport_10.pdf</ref> million people on an area of 147.570 square kilometers. That makes the country to “one of the most crowded on Earth”<ref>Geographic information about Bangladesh. http://travel.nationalgeographic.com/travel/countries/bangladesh-facts/</ref>. Bangladesh lies in the Ganges-Brahmaputra river system which makes the land very fructuous. The annual floods on the one hand are helping and welcomed because they give fertility to the land, but on the other hand they sometimes destroy the harvest and kill the people who are living near the river. Most of the Bangladeshi people live from agricultural production, for example “wheat, barley, maize, potatoes, pulses, bananas and mangoes”<ref name="A">Brochure of Clean Clothes Campaign: Who pays for our clothing from Lidl and KIK? Published at Kampagne für Saubere-Kleidung (Clean Clothes Campaign; CCC). Published as brochure at January 1st, 2008: http://www.saubere-kleidung.de/downloads/publikationen/2008-01_Brosch-Lidl-KiK_en.pdf</ref>. The Bangladeshi people are very poor. Around 25% of the population is suffering from hunger. The garment industry contributes enormously to the economic development. 2 million people are working at the 3.500 factories. 85% of them are women from the rural regions who need to work in the cities because of job shortage in their home regions. The work at the garment factories is their only chance to receive income that helps to save the survival of the family.<ref name="A" /><br>
In Bangladesh lives a population of about 164,4<ref>Report about human population 2010. http://www.weltbevoelkerung.de/pdf/dsw_datenreport_10.pdf</ref> million people on an area of 147.570 square kilometers. That makes the country to “one of the most crowded on Earth”<ref>Geographic information about Bangladesh. http://travel.nationalgeographic.com/travel/countries/bangladesh-facts/</ref>. Bangladesh lies in the Ganges-Brahmaputra river system which makes the land very fructuous. The annual floods on the one hand are helping and welcomed because they give fertility to the land, but on the other hand they sometimes destroy the harvest and kill the people who are living near the river. Most of the Bangladeshi people live from agricultural production, for example “wheat, barley, maize, potatoes, pulses, bananas and mangoes”<ref name="A">Brochure of Clean Clothes Campaign: Who pays for our clothing from Lidl and KIK? Published at Kampagne für Saubere-Kleidung (Clean Clothes Campaign; CCC). Published as brochure at January 1st, 2008: http://www.saubere-kleidung.de/downloads/publikationen/2008-01_Brosch-Lidl-KiK_en.pdf</ref>. The Bangladeshi people are very poor. Around 25% of the population is suffering from hunger. The garment industry contributes enormously to the economic development. 2 million people are working at the 3.500 factories. 85% of them are women from the rural regions who need to work in the cities because of job shortage in their home regions. The work at the garment factories is their only chance to receive income that helps to save the survival of the family.<ref name="A" /><br>  


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==== 2.2 The Bangladeshi garment and textile industry ====
==== 2.2 The Bangladeshi garment and textile industry ====


The “Agreement on Textiles and Clothing” of the World Trade Organisation (ATC) in 1995 was designed to avoid the massive export of clothes produced in emerging and developing countries to industrial countries.<ref>Globalisierung. Author: PD Dr. Norman Backhaus. Published by Prof. Dr. Rainer Duttmann, Prof. Dr. Rainer Glawion, Prof. Herbert Popp, Prof. Dr. Rita Schneider-Sliwa. Published in Westermann Bildungshaus Schulbuchverlage, Braunschweig 2009, page 171.</ref> The ATC restricted the imports of textiles and clothing through quotas. Huge garment producers and exporters like China, India or Hong Kong were affected by these quotas. Bangladesh was not affected, because it was a very poor developing country and therefore took its chance and established a growing textile industry. The exports of clothes rose from 600 million US dollars in 1990 to about eight billion US dollars in 2006.<ref name="A" /> The export products of Bangladesh shifted from raw material, like jute, and jute products (90%) to clothes based on cotton. “The textile and clothing industry now accounts for 76% of the total export volume of Bangladesh.”<ref name="A" /> Fishery (7%) and the raw material jute (5%) are the two other important export-products of Bangladesh. The Bangladeshi economy today is very strong orientated on the textile industry. That may cause problems if the export declines and of cause if the needed raw material for clothing cotton gets expensive. Cotton is not cultivated in Bangladesh itself therefore it must be imported before it can be part of the garment production. As the “Agreement on Textiles and Clothing” phased out in 2005, many experts were afraid of a possible collapse of the Bangladeshi textile industry because they now had to compete against China and India for gaining orders. Bangladesh has managed to sustain their contract partners from the EU and USA because the production at Bangladesh is possible at an “extremely low wage level”.<ref name="A" /> <br><br><br>  
The “Agreement on Textiles and Clothing” of the World Trade Organisation (ATC) in 1995 was designed to avoid the massive export of clothes produced in emerging and developing countries to industrial countries.<ref>Globalisierung. Author: PD Dr. Norman Backhaus. Published by Prof. Dr. Rainer Duttmann, Prof. Dr. Rainer Glawion, Prof. Herbert Popp, Prof. Dr. Rita Schneider-Sliwa. Published in Westermann Bildungshaus Schulbuchverlage, Braunschweig 2009, page 171.</ref> The ATC restricted the imports of textiles and clothing through quotas. Huge garment producers and exporters like China, India or Hong Kong were affected by these quotas. Bangladesh was not affected, because it was a very poor developing country and therefore took its chance and established a growing textile industry. The exports of clothes rose from 600 million US dollars in 1990 to about eight billion US dollars in 2006.<ref name="A" /> The export products of Bangladesh shifted from raw material, like jute, and jute products (90%) to clothes based on cotton. “The textile and clothing industry now accounts for 76% of the total export volume of Bangladesh.”<ref name="A" /> Fishery (7%) and the raw material jute (5%) are the two other important export-products of Bangladesh. The Bangladeshi economy today is very strong orientated on the textile industry. That may cause problems if the export declines and of cause if the needed raw material for clothing cotton gets expensive. Cotton is not cultivated in Bangladesh itself therefore it must be imported before it can be part of the garment production. As the “Agreement on Textiles and Clothing” phased out in 2005, many experts were afraid of a possible collapse of the Bangladeshi textile industry because they now had to compete against China and India for gaining orders. Bangladesh has managed to sustain their contract partners from the EU and USA because the production at Bangladesh is possible at an “extremely low wage level”.<ref name="A" /> <br><br>
 
=== <u>3) The discounter KiK and its methods</u><br>  ===
 
==== 3.1 Profile of the garment discounter KiK<br>  ====
 
The KiK company was founded in 1994 by Stefan Heinig and the Tengelmann group. KiK is an abbreviation for the German slogan “der Kunde ist König”, that means “the customer is the king”. The mission statement of KiK is that everyone can get completely dressed from stockings to the cap for only 30 Euro. KiK is a quickly growing textile discounter. Today the KiK company consists out of 3.000 stores in Germany, Austria, Czech Republic, Slovenia, Hungary and Slovakia. Each year about 200 new stores are opened. The annual turnover is more than one billion Euros. KiK is the largest textile discounter in Germany. The rage of products includes on one side ladies, men, children and baby wear and on the other side giftware, toys, accessories, home textiles, underwear and stockings. KiK uses the known German TV-starlet Verona Pooth for advertising their products as a testimonial. The KiK company stresses that they offer good quality for a very cheap price. The quality is tested by the quality assurance management of KiK. In Addition KiK works together with the international testing institute SGS Fresenius and the TÜV institute Rheinland. On the KiK homepage customers can watch a short film that shows the quality management.<ref>Data and facts abour KiK: http://www.kik-textilien.com/fileadmin/Abteilungen/Kommunikation/Presse/Zahlen-Daten-Fakten-KiK_2011.pdf (View: 26.2.2011).</ref><ref name="B">KiK - company profile: http://www.kik-textilien.com/unternehmen/presse/pressearchiv/unternehmensprofil/pm-unternehmesportait/ (View: 26.2.2011)</ref><ref>KiK company film: http://www.kik-textilien.com/unternehmen/presse/pressearchiv/unternehmensfilm/ (View: 26.2.2011)</ref>
 
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==== 3.2 Market power of discounters  ====
 
===== <u>3.2.1 How discounter determine the prices</u>  =====
 
Why can discounter sell their products for such little prices? As you can read on the KiK homepage their basis business model is to order a big number of pieces from each product and deliver them with an intelligent logistic system to their stores. It is important to plan an attractive product-range and be flexible enough to order quickly new products when they have sold-out.<ref name="B" /> The production of demanded clothes needs to be a “Just-in-Time” production, because this system allows a maximum of flexibility and very little costs for storage.<ref>Globalisierung. Author: PD Dr. Norman Backhaus. Published by Prof. Dr. Rainer Duttmann, Prof. Dr. Rainer Glawion, Prof. Herbert Popp, Prof. Dr. Rita Schneider-Sliwa. Published in Westermann Bildungshaus Schulbuchverlage, Braunschweig 2009, page 167.</ref>
 
The big volume orders have both advantages and disadvantages for the textile producers at Bangladesh. As an advantage you can name that the factories are working to full capacity. This is under the economic point of view a status that one should aspire. The workers have jobs and are paid. The problem is that such factories depend on only one huge client. If this client decides to search for a new producer the whole factory is without an order. That means the machines stand still and the workers are dismissed. The factory owner won’t have enough money to pay his bills like rental fee or electricity costs. If he doesn’t get a new order he will soon be bankrupt. So, the dependence to one client is a clear disadvantage for the producers. The big client uses his power to keep the prices down. “The largest discounters pay their suppliers up to 15-20 percent less for their goods than normal department stores (ActionAid, 2007, p. 16).”<ref name="A" /> The consequence of steadily decreasing prices is the decreasing of the already low wages of the garment workers. <br><br><br>  


==== References<br>  ====
==== References<br>  ====
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