http://www.threadless.com/ Fri, 01 Jun 2012 22:32:21 -0500 Tue, 11 May 2010 03:04:18 -0500
I love Threadless, the T's, the vibe, the love, it's all groovy, or is it?..

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UPDATE: I was not aware of the phasing out of the Bangladesh T's at the time of writing as it's still in the info section of the site. Most of this blog is now out of date (seems like I'm about year late?). Though questions are still relevant for the Jersey T's.
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• Workers routinely slapped and punched for not working fast enough;
• Forced to work 14 hours a day, seven days a week, with at most one day off a month;
• Mandatory 19-hour all-night shifts once a week, from 8:00 a.m. to 3:00 a.m. the following morning, after which workers sleep on factory floor
and more here: http://www.nlcnet.org/campaigns/niagra/niagra-bangladesh.pdf

As a community, we need to demand knowing all. An open Letter I've passed on to the team:

"Threadless T-shirts are made in US and Bangledesh, I found that the Bangladesh 'Labour and Employment Minister [said] "We hope that the workers will soon start getting the benefits of the national minimum wage"'.

This is hardly reassuring. Someone who has purchased more than a comfortable amount of Tees from Threadless I can't help but think about the (actual) conditions of the workers who harvested the cotton and made the shirt and on my back.

If the conditions are up to "US standards", it should be a breeze to authenticate a Fair Trade branding which would instil confidence for your customers.

In the write up, you say "We were pretty concerned at first about the conditions of the factory, how they treat their workers etc." It sounds like you're either performing a PR stunt or just finding comfort in ignorance by saying "We were assured". If you were concerned, aren’t you still?

Threadless has an honourable "no rubbish" customer relations attitude and I love that but this area is really jeopardising that mantra. I want to keep love Threadless but every time I put a shirt on that says made in Bangledesh I can't help but think about where it's come from.

Please Threadless, don't compromise your awesome reputation!

- At what depth and what were the findings of the research that was done in regard to fair treatment of the supply chain (cotton manufacturers?)?
- Is there action being taken on this front?

Please help me love you Threadless."]]> Tue, 07 Apr 2009 05:25:23 -0500
Yo Threadless mgmt - I was thinking, it'd be sweet to buy individual shirts and have you keep 'em in the states for a time until there's a bunch so I can bulk send them. I would buy plenty more if you had this ability.]]>