by Jay Kerr, Campaigner and T-shirt Project Lead at No Sweat

No Sweat has long asserted that the garment industry's deeply entrenched labour abuses are symptomatic of unregulated global capitalism. The concept of ‘ethical production’, promoted by corporate compliance departments, has always been undermined by procurement's relentless drive for the lowest price. Given corporations' legal imperative to maximise profit, procurement needs invariably took precedence, resulting in spin about ethics and the growth of an accreditation industry offering some semblance of ethical production, while workers’ rights were continuously violated.

Ultimately, our anger and frustration over this failed model led No Sweat to conceive a direct challenge: a unique project demonstrating what genuinely ethical production could look like. This decision was affirmed by an undeniable consensus from major human rights and labour NGOs. Their reports now unequivocally expose social auditing and accreditation as a fundamentally failed system, not fit for purpose.

Why the current model fails

The main failures include a critical lack of transparency and accountability. Reports are not public, meaning workers and stakeholders cannot access them, failing to build trust. Moreover, inherent conflicts of interest plague the system: social audits are paid investigations, and evidence of collusion between factory management, brands and auditing firms to hide poor conditions is widespread. Even where there is no direct collusion, suppliers forced into audits inevitably conceal abuses. Compliance, not genuine change, is often the result. While abuses are sometimes uncovered, the persistent lack of worker involvement means abuses continue. After more than 30 years of Corporate Social Responsibility in the garment sector relying on external social auditing companies and top-down voluntary codes of conduct, sweatshop conditions persist. This lack of genuine worker representation is often compounded by company-controlled unions, frequently referred to as 'yellow unions,' which, as recent analyses like the Business & Human Rights Resource Centre report Just for show: Worker representation in Asia’s garment sector reveal, serve to legitimise rather than challenge poor labour practices.

No Sweat, like many campaign groups, has long concluded that accreditation schemes primarily protect reputation and function as tick-box compliance, failing to address fundamental power imbalances or transform the grim realities faced by many garment workers. Moreover, they are actively harmful, creating a false sense of progress among consumers. Consumers rely on 'ethical logos' and their associated promises – freedom of association, no child or forced labour, safe working conditions, a living wage. Yet these are merely aspirational goals, not membership criteria. A real living wage, though a figure exists, is not implemented anywhere, yet every accreditation scheme lists it. These aspirational goals, presented as reality, result in mass deception, perpetuating worker abuse. This performative commitment to ethics often prioritises brand image over genuine transformation within the supply chain.

The worker-driven alternative

What's the alternative? For years, academics, activists and campaigners have pointed to worker-driven social responsibility as the model to replace corporate social responsibility, where workers themselves take the lead in defining, monitoring and enforcing labour standards. A worker-led model requires legally binding agreements signed by worker representatives (trade unions), factory owners and brands. Such a model must replace social audits and accreditations. We have seen this model in landmark achievements such as the Dindigul Agreement1 in India, the Accord2 in Bangladesh, and the Enforceable Brand Agreement3 in Lesotho.

A major factor in this move away from the social audit and accreditation model – and its susceptibility to company-controlled unions – has been the crucial role of independent trade unions. For two decades, No Sweat has pushed strong, independent unions as the solution, believing that only through genuine collective bargaining and sustained monitoring by independent worker representatives can power imbalances be addressed and rights truly upheld. It's only by workers organising themselves that lasting, meaningful change can happen. The legally binding agreements emerging are the expansion of union organising.

The No Sweat model

Eight years ago, No Sweat put this to the test. We created a wholesale T-shirt brand to challenge ethical fashion over its failure to involve workers and trade unions as part of the solution to sweatshops.

Rather than rely on the failed social audit model, we worked directly with trade unions on the ground in garment-producing countries to create a brand with workers’ rights at its heart. Instead of relying on third-party auditors to inspect factories, we work directly with trade unions we have a campaign relationship with. We identify factories they've successfully unionised and ask them to make the introduction to management – demonstrating a unionised workforce is attractive to buyers.

This model, like the emerging legally binding agreements, is crucially worker-driven. The buyer contract is conditional on the factory management’s good relationship with the trade union as its workers' representative. The trade union monitors conditions and remediates conflicts. The brand maintains contact with the trade union over any issues that arise and engages with the factory management on these issues at the unions behest. The independence of the trade union is critical in this process as it ensures the worker-led power balance is maintained. This process would be meaningless if the trade union is controlled by the factory.

While this project has seen a number of setbacks and difficulties, many related to the learning curve of an activist group operating inside the business market, through trial and error, it has nonetheless shown that the model is viable. This project, therefore, stands as a notable exception in an industry where trade unions are often perceived as a challenge to business efficiency, demonstrating that a worker-driven model is not only viable but can serve as a powerful alternative to traditional corporate social responsibility.

Ultimately, the No Sweat T-shirt project serves as a compelling, union-driven demonstration for the garment industry, illustrating that genuine accountability and worker well-being stem not from corporate-led audits, but from the power of direct worker organisation and negotiated agreements.