The FairWear ?Fair School Wear? campaign aims to encourage school communities to understand and be active around the issues of workers that make their school uniforms.

FairWear encourages schools to sign a Statement of Commitment and encourage their suppliers to become accredited to the Homeworkers Code of Practice, implement the FairWear Fair Work Standard or choose to buy uniforms from accredited suppliers.

To assist schools with these aims, FairWear has recently developed a DVD resource ?No Sweat School?, filmed at Marian College Sunshine, Melbourne in 2004 and featuring students in an ethical fashion parade and talking about homeworkers.

The DVD is 7 minutes long and provides a useful tool to be used in a range of teaching curricula. FairWear also has a FairWear Action School Kit. The DVD and kit are also ideal to encourage school communities to develop creative strategies to support and engage with the FairWear campaign around local and international campaigns on social justice work related issues - think global act local. Some ideas include a fashion parade ? such as featured on the DVD - encouraging students to source ethical suppliers, for example Qualitops, for Year 12 or Year 10 end-of-year school shirts

The DVD can be purchased from FairWear for $25 each, including a fact sheet. Please download the order form. All proceeds go towards continuing the FairWear campaign against the exploitation of homeworkers in the garment industry.

Downloads:

• DVD Order Form
• DVD Fact Sheet  (pdf file)
• DVD Script (word file - also below)

?No Sweat School?

DVD script

GIRL 1 ?It is a local problem, even though people don?t think it is. I go for walks sometimes around my suburb and I see some people in their garage with massive amounts of sewing machines and lots of clothes and they are just sewing away.?

GIRL 2 ?A brand I used to wear a lot I now know exploit outworkers and I look at the clothes? the stitching, and it must have taken so long to do and they probably earned nothing for it. It has really changed the clothes that I buy and the things that I look at.?

TEACHER ?The exploitation of outworkers is really relevant. In the Western suburbs, there are a lot of workers being exploited in homes, working long hours.?

GIRL 2 ?A lot of immigrants ? in the Western suburbs and they tend to be targeted for being exploited.?

Annie Delaney - FairWear ?The reality, it is an economic reason. People can?t have access to jobs and education, they take what they can get to survive. And outwork is what a lot of women do to support their family to survive.?

Hong Nguyen, TCFUA ?Outworkers need the schools to speak out for them. Even now, outworkers do not have their rights yet. Unless the school does something with the company. Nothing will change.?

GIRL 2 ?The companies are a bit shoddy. The companies have heaps of money. It wouldn?t kill them to pay the employees a little bit more. It would benefit everyone?

GIRL 3 ?It really makes you think. People our age have jobs and get paid junior rates and still complain. But people in Australia have not enough pay. It really makes you think.?

GIRL 4 ?These companies know they are big and they know that they are going to sell their clothes, so they don?t care about who the workers are.? GIRL 5  ?Plus it is affecting the workers? health because they have to work lengthy hours and not get paid much at all, so it is a sacrifice they have to make.?

GIRL 4 "The thing is, the big companies, they can advertise more so they sell more. The companies that sign the FairWear agreement, they have to give more money to the workers that make clothes for them, so they have less money for advertising, I think that is a big impact.?

TEACHER It is all about the mighty dollar and profit making. We are opposed to exploiting workers at the expense of profit.

GIRL 6  ?I know a girl who is Vietnamese and her mum works in her garage and she makes about 50 pants every night and probably gets $20 per three days. And that is down at St Albans. So it is everywhere you go, you never know.?

TEACHER ?No sick pay, no decent wage, no holiday wage, no superannuation, no long service leave. All the sorts of things that most Australia workers can take for granted. We are very much against that sort of exploitation of outworkers taking place, especially by these big brand name companies that can certainly afford to do better by their workers.?

Annie Delaney ?What about school uniforms? Do you think there is some way to try and make sure that the uniforms you wear are made by women that get fair pay?

GIRL 2 "See whether they sign the FairWear trade agreement.

TEACHER ?If they are offering a big contract to get people to wear this uniform, why can?t they through the SRC, why can?t the school insist that they take a Fair Wear approach??

GIRL 2 ?I think that we should go out there and protest. Go infront of shops that use outworkers tell people to go inside the shops and ask if they know what conditions that the clothes were made under and make them aware because I think that if you are there, at the place, then, I think they will be more aware of it.?

GIRL 1 ?Because most people would be upset knowing that the clothes were made in conditions like that. That by buying those clothes, they are making this company richer and making people poorer. It might make them think twice?

TEACHER ?Lisa said very strongly in the committee meeting when we were rasing funds for Sudan, that if we were having a fashion parade, she would not support any company lending us clothes that exploited outworkers.?

FACTS:

• The bulk of clothes made in Australia are being made in private homes.
• There are an estimated 300 000 outworkers in Australia.
• Outworkers earn an average of $3.60 an hour and as little as 50 cents an hour.
• There are many examples of clothes that are made for $1 and retail for $50-$100.
• Most outworkers work between 12-19 hours a day.
• The Homeworkers Code of Practice is an industry wide agreement helping to eliminate the exploitation of outworkers.