Fashion Kills: Industrial Manslaughter in the Global Supply Chain

More than 42 young workers in Turkey died terrible deaths from silicosis after intense exposures to crystalline silica. These workers were sandblasting denim jeans in garment sweatshops so international clothing brands can charge triple price for jeans with the worn, faded look so desirable to consumers in Europe and the United States.

These officially documented deaths — only 2 years' worth to July 2007 — are just the tip of the iceberg among the 8,000-10,000 denim workers in Turkey and thousands more globally. A 2008 Turkish medical study found radiological confirmation of silicosis in 53 percent of sandblasters in a survey of 145 denim workers. At least 4,000 workers in Turkey alone are considered to be at risk.

Silicosis is an occupational lung disease caused by the inhalation of dust containing free crystalline silica, such as sand used for abrasive blasting. Silicosis is an incurable, progressive disease that worsens over time, even after exposure to silica stops, resulting in agonizing deaths by suffocation as lung capacity decreases, or non-fatal chronic disability.

Around 5 billion pairs of denim jeans are made throughout the world each year. In 2008, Turkey was the third largest world exporter of jeans, with sales of $2.3 billion. Major jeans producers are also located in Bangladesh, Cambodia, China, Egypt, India, Indonesia, Jordan and Mexico.

A growing segment of the jeans markets are expensive “vintage” jeans with a worn or faded look. This appearance is created by the use of sandpaper or brushes, chemical treatment with potassium permanganate, acids or bleach and laser technology. Since 2000, sandblasting has become the preferred method because it is quicker, more reliable and cheaper. Abrasive blasting with very fine sand both softens the denim and lightens its original deep color.

INVISIBLE WORKERS

In Turkey — as in other jeans factories globally — sandblasting is done in small, unventilated rooms by workers typically using only paper dust masks. Turkish workers, who routinely work 10-11 hours a day, 6 days a week, experience intense exposures to silica dust during production, which accelerates the development of disease. Workers sandblast 250-500 pairs of jeans a day and 3,000-5,000 skirts and other clothing items. Additionally, many denim workers in Turkey sleep at the worksite in an adjacent room, receiving a second dose of silica from uncontrolled circulation of dust within the building.

Because the jeans industry pays poorly ($100-$125 a week) and has brutal working conditions, most workers either are migrants from rural areas of Turkey or immigrant workers from Romania, Moldavia, Georgia or Azerbaijan. Scores of sick sandblasters have disappeared from Turkey, returning to suffer unrecorded silicosis deaths in their home villages.

Turkey's first recorded silicosis cases were in 2005 with two workers who started sandblasting jeans when they were 13 and 14 years old. It took only 5 years of work to develop the disease, and the younger worker died the day after his diagnosis. Since then, some denim workers in Turkey have had such intense exposures that they contracted silicosis after no more than a year of sandblasting work, due to long hours of exposure to high-silica content dust.

GOVERNMENT, CSR FAILURES

After the UK banned abrasive blasting of garments in 1950, and the rest of Europe followed suit by 1966, denim blasting moved to Turkey, Bangladesh and Syria. After a major campaign by unions and medical professionals, the Turkish Ministry of Health formally banned denim sandblasting in March 2009. But the work simply has moved to hundreds of illegal sweatshops, subcontracting to suppliers of well-known international brands, including Levi's, Strom Jeans and Dolce & Gabbana.

The Turkish government, like virtually all governments in the developing world, has few inspectors to actually enforce the Ministry of Health ban, and has no political will to restrict a multi-billion dollar export business generating essential foreign income.

The international brands' much-vaunted “corporate social responsibility” (CSR) programs — now a $40 billion business worldwide — also have failed to protect supply chain workers. Levi's, for example, has developed “corporate code of conduct” guidelines for abrasive blasting operations, but none of the Turkish sandblasting subcontractors has the financial and technical resources to implement these measures.