Fashion Checker — Shining a Light on Wages in Fashion Supply Chains

This week marks the launch of Fashion Checker, a new data tool that connects the dots between brand commitments on living wages and the reality for workers on the ground. The project is coordinated by Clean Clothes Campaign in partnership with Semcon, WageIndicator and WikiRate. The campaign seeks to make brands accountable for their promises on living wages and invites the public in to explore the data.

Brands must stop hiding their supply chains. Their clothes are made by real people, in real locations. Consumers deserve to know where, and under what circumstances, clothes are produced.

— Paul Roeland, Clean Clothes Campaign

The research for the project was divided into two phases: a brand questionnaire on living wage policies and field research surveys which collected data on the working conditions and salaries of garment workers. The data collected was cleaned, aggregated (in the case of the worker surveys) and added to the WikiRate platform. From there, this open data is pulled into the Fashion Checker tool which will automatically update as new data is added by Clean Clothes Campaign in the coming months.

Through the tool you can explore how companies score on currently paying their workers a living wage, the transparency of their supply chain and their commitments to paying workers a living wage in the future. The tool also pulls in data on the company’s supply chain including gender breakdowns of workers, the actual to minimum wage pay gap and collective bargaining agreements.

One of the most striking findings from the research so far is that 93% of the brands surveyed do not pay their supply chain workers a living wage.

We look forward to continuing this important collaboration and opening up more data on living wages in fashion supply chains. To find out more about the project and dig into the data head to FashionChecker.org.