Oxfam Canada Workshop Outline

Oxfam Canada Workshop Outline:

Sweatshops (Stakeholders’ Meeting version)

prepared by Terry Newcombe, Ottawa Volunteer, March 2005

Issues Covered: sweatshops, globalization, economics, trade, Make Trade Fair

Target Audience: high school, university students or the general public

Group Size: 15-30 people

Duration: 60-70 minutes minimum

Things to prepare ahead of time:

A sufficient number of hand-outs for the Stakeholders’ Meeting
Nametags/labels marked with the five roles: CEO, Owner, Worker, Consumer, and NGO (optional).
Oxfam brochures or promotional materials (to make available at end of presentation)
Presentation evaluation forms (page 7) (optional)

Suggested Agenda

00:00 - 00:05 Introduction

00:05 - 00:50 Stakeholders’ Meeting: A Shoe Factory

00:50 - 01:05 Wrap up/Evaluation

Introduction

a) Introduce yourself, Oxfam and the workshop activities. The following is an example; please adapt it as you wish.

Hello my name is ………. I am a volunteer with Oxfam Canada.

Does anyone know what Oxfam Canada does? Oxfam Canada is a Non Governmental Organization (NGO) that is doing international development work. We work with overseas partners to eradicate poverty. That can mean a lot of things, but right now we are focusing on helping people develop a self-sufficient food supply, educating people on the rights of women and children and establishing worldwide trade practices that are fair for developing countries.

Here in Canada, Oxfam Canada lobbies the government and corporations to do their part in achieving these goals. We also give presentations to help raise public awareness on international development issues. One of those issues is sweatshops, and this is what we will be focusing on today.

Stakeholders’ Meeting: A Shoe Factory

Divide the participants into five groups:

Assembly line worker in a shoe factory
CEO of a shoe corporation
Shoe factory owner
First world consumer
NGO rep

Hand out the appropriate role-playing sheets to each participant. (If there are 25 participants, there will be 5 workers, 5 CEOs, etc. If there are leftover participants, make them workers.

Explain (paraphrase, don’t just read) the Scenario portion of any role-playing sheet.Do not read the Position portion of the sheet. Then explain that in ten minutes, the groups will split up and one person from each group will go into different Stakeholders’ Meeting. (If there are 25 participants, there will be five meetings in different parts of the room. If there are 26-29 participants, some meeting will have two workers.) First, though, give each group ten minutes to read their role’s Position statement and discuss amongst themselves how they will argue their case. They want to help each other now so that their role will ‘win’ at all the separate Stakeholders’ Meetings.

After ten minutes, break the groups up and form the separate Stakeholders’ Meetings. Give each meeting twentyminutes to work out an agreement.

The facilitator(s) should walk quietly from meeting to meeting, listening in and only contributing if asked OR if you find the groups are too conciliatory and you want to stir things up. (For example, tell the worker that if he doesn’t agree to the demands, he’ll be unemployed. Or tell the CEO that consumers are also stockholders and they’re now demanding responsible corporate behaviour. Stir up any meetings where people are being unrealistically conciliatory.)

Announce ‘five minutes left’ and ‘two minutes left’ at the appropriate times. When the time is up, ask the assembly line worker from each meeting to announce their decision as briefly as possible (without getting into what happened during the meeting). After you’ve got the results from all meetings, ask people how the meetings went and how people felt about what happened. Get input from all the different roles.

Wrap up by explaining that, in reality, such stakeholder meetings are rare, and that several of the roles that we identified are frequently not ‘at the table’. Ask which ones (worker, consumer, NGO). Ask how you think the results would differ without these participants.

Wrap Up and Call to Action

To wrap up the workshop, discuss some actions that the participants themselves can do to help sweatshop workers. An example is below, but please modify this with additional actions you are aware of. (Check for current ideas when preparing the workshop.)

Okay, so we’ve seen that the problems are big. Yet you shouldn’t boycott the offending brands. That just encourages them to ‘cut and run’, dumping the troublesome factories and leaving the workers unemployed. So what can you do? Lots! Some ideas include:

Download the No Sweat Organizers Guide and other resources from
Hold a No Sweat fashion show in your school.
Organize a students’ group demanding that school clothing manufacturers take responsibility and prove that their clothes are not made in sweatshops.
Similarly lobby for responsible purchasing by your municipality and province.
Sing some No Sweat Christmas carols at your Christmas assemblies.
Cut it out! All across Canada, people are cutting out their clothing labels to protest sweatshop labour. You can organize a "Cut It Out" action in your community.
Discuss socially responsible investments (SRIs) with your parents or teachers. Google it.

When discussing what YOU can do specifically, discuss the common feeling of "It's hopeless, we're just a few against the powerful." Give Margaret Mead's quote:" Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it's the only thing that ever has."

And finally, thank everyone for their participation, both today and in their future actions.

A Stakeholders’ Meeting: Handout for the CEO Role

The Scenario

A large, multinational shoe manufacturing corporation subcontracts to a factory in Honduras to assemble running shoes. The CEO of the corporation has told the factory owner that they need to cut the workers’ salaries by 10% in order to stay profitable against heavy competition. The workers have heard rumours of this and are threatening to form a union and demand fair wages.

A meeting has been arranged to work out an agreement between the various groups that have a stake in the situation. Each of you will be playing the role of a stakeholder, and you will be asked to argue your positionin order to reach a solution that is satisfactory to everyone.

The stakeholder roles are:

CEO of a shoe corporation
Shoe factory owner
Assembly line worker in shoe factory
First world consumer
Representative of an NGO for workers’ rights

Your Position: CEO Role

You’re in a very competitive industry, and if you don’t have the lowest shoe prices then consumers will buy other brands. You have to keep manufacturing costs low to keep prices low.
Your company’s Annual General Meeting is coming up, and the stockholders are going to want to know what you’ve done to reduce costs and thus maximize profits. If the stockholders don’t see higher profits, they’ll switch to other investments. To get higher profits, you have to reduce costs like worker wages.
Your company subcontracts to factories in over a dozen countries, all with low employment and desperate for work. If a factory won’t agree to reduced wages, it’s worth the hassle to cancel that factory’s contract and move to a more cooperative (or more desperate) factory in another country.
You’re told that this factory owner is treating his workers poorly, but that’s his job, not yours. You’re responsible for the big picture and he’s responsible for his employees (who aren’t part of your corporation, after all). Besides, it’s the responsibility of the Honduran government to ensure its workers are treated fairly, not you.

A Stakeholders’ Meeting: Handout for the Shoe Factory Owner

The Scenario

A meeting has been arranged to work out an agreement between the various groups that have a stake in the situation. Each of you will be playing the role of a stakeholder, and you will be asked to argue your position in order to reach a solution that is satisfactory to everyone.

The stakeholder roles are:

CEO of a shoe corporation
Shoe factory owner
Assembly line worker in shoe factory
First world consumer
Representative of an NGO for workers’ rights

Your Position: Shoe Factory Owner

You’ve worked hard to become the owner of this factory, but your profit margin is very small and you need contracts like this one to stay in business. If you don’t convince the workers to accept this wage, you may lose the contract and have to lay off employees.
You realize that some employees will quit if wages are lowered, but there are thousands of unemployed Hondurans who will jump at the chance for a job, so you’re not worried.
It’s true that the lower wages won’t be enough to eat well or send your workers’ children to school. But it’s their fault for having such large families. And any income is better than no income, isn’t it? And can’t the rest of their families get work? You’ll be glad to hire them.
You’ve had to cut lots of corners to keep costs low, like using old equipment and poor lighting and inadequate ventilation. But that still hasn’t made the big corporations happy, and they’re not interested in those details anyways. You feel you’re being squeezed by both sides in this decision with no options for you.
Interfering non governmental organizations (NGOs) are saying that it’s illegal to prevent workers from forming their own unions. But you know that if they succeed, costs will go up. If worst comes to worst, you plan to pick workers who support you and install a union that you can control.
Some workers and outside NGOs say you should cut your own profits, since you’re getting rich by keeping your workers poor. But you definitely don’t want to cut your own profits, because you’ve worked very hard to climb out of the hole those workers are in, and there’s no way you’ll risk going back. You’ve got your own family to look after, and the kids’ll be going to college soon.

A Stakeholders’ Meeting: Handout for the Assembly Line Worker

The Scenario

A meeting has been arranged to work out an agreement between the various groups that have a stake in the situation. Each of you will be playing the role of a stakeholder, and you will be asked to argue your position in order to reach a solution that is satisfactory to everyone.

The stakeholder roles are:

CEO of a shoe corporation
Shoe factory owner
Assembly line worker in shoe factory
First world consumer
Representative of an NGO for workers’ rights

Your Position: Assembly Line Worker

You’re hungry. Your job doesn’t pay a ‘living wage’ (enough to shelter, feed, and educate you and your family), even with your spouse and older children working as well.
You’re afraid. If you try to stand up for yourself and ask for fair payment for hard work, you might convince the shoe company to switch to another factory, and you could lose your job. So is a bit of money better than none at all?
You’re unhealthy. The glue you apply to the shoes is poisonous and the factory has poor ventilation. The repetitive work under poor lighting all day is taking its toll. Maybe you could accept the lower wages if the working conditions improved?
You’re threatened. You want a better life for you and your family, and your only hope is improving the pay and working conditions in this job. But when you try to attend a meeting of workers interested in starting a union (to improve working conditions), you see the factory owner writing everyone’s names down. And you’ve heard threats that anyone participating in a union meeting will be fired. And the union leader was attacked just outside of the factory last night.
You’re hopeful. You’ve heard of how workers in North America have rights, like minimum wages and the right to safe working conditions and the right to form your own union. You’ve heard that there are non governmental organizations (NGOs) that will help you stand up for yourself. You’ve even heard that some consumers in the rich countries are pressuring the big corporations to help you out. But such risks…

A Stakeholders’ Meeting: Handout for the First World Consumer

The Scenario

A meeting has been arranged to work out an agreement between the various groups that have a stake in the situation. Each of you will be playing the role of a stakeholder, and you will be asked to argue your position in order to reach a solution that is satisfactory to everyone.

The stakeholder roles are:

CEO of a shoe corporation
Shoe factory owner
Assembly line worker in shoe factory
First world consumer
Representative of an NGO for workers’ rights

Your Position: First World Consumer

Of course you compare the price of shoes before you buy. And you look for quality, not just the lowest price. But price is important, since you’re trying to save for your kids’ education and your own retirement.
Still, the newspapers have been telling lots of stories about what’s happening to the workers in the shoe factories in countries like Honduras. That’s not right, they’ve got kids just I do. And those big corporations are getting record profits at the same time as they’re cutting worker salaries. Can’t I get fair shoe prices without the guilt of knowing what’s happening to make the prices so low?
Someone just forwarded a website address to me, where I can just click in a few places and send a letter to the head of my favourite shoe corporation, saying that I’ll buy their shoes if they show they’re treating the factory workers fairly. That’s easy, and maybe it’ll even make a difference if enough of us do that. I think I’ll tell my friends.
Hey, that website ( also says that the annual stockholder meetings of big corporations sometimes have motions put forward by everyday stockholders like me, asking that independent international observers be allowed into the factories to ensure rights are being met. That’s cool, trying to convince corporations that their stockholders aren’t insisting on high profits at any cost, but instead only if it can be done fairly. Hmm, don’t my parents/friends/co-workers have some stock in my favourite shoe corporation? I’ve got to talk to them.
I wonder if there are others ways I can help, without it taking a lot of my time or money. Maybe the local Oxfam chapter can tell me…

A Stakeholders’ Meeting: Handout for the NGO Representative

The Scenario

A meeting has been arranged to work out an agreement between the various groups that have a stake in the situation. Each of you will be playing the role of a stakeholder, and you will be asked to argue your position in order to reach a solution that is satisfactory to everyone.

The stakeholder roles are:

CEO of a shoe corporation
Shoe factory owner
Assembly line worker in shoe factory
First world consumer
Representative of an NGO for workers’ rights

Your Position: NGO Representative

Thank goodness you’ve been invited to this meeting. You can’t believe how uninformed the factory workers are, because the owners are lying about the national laws on minimum wage and worker rights. At the very least, you should be able to threaten to report the owners to the government on several violations of national employment standards: minimum wage, maximum hours of work per day and week, the right to form a union of their own picking, and the right to certain health and safety standards.
Hmm, you did that for another clothing company once and the government did nothing. It was even rumoured that they sent in the military at the request of the workshop owner to violently break up a legal strike! Why doesn’t this government care about its people? You guess they care about their export quotas more, maybe because it pays off the foreign debts and also conveniently keeps the government rich and in power.
This ‘profit and growth at all costs’ form of economics is self-defeating in the long term. How can you convince the CEO that they need to find a more sustainable solution that doesn’t destroy the lives of the people that keep the corporation alive? Education seems to be part of the answer, telling the workers about their rights and telling the consumers and stockholders about the hidden ugliness behind their low prices.
Now about this meeting: compromise, that’s always another important part of the solution. Everyone has to give in a bit.
And publicity, that’ll help. If the media are there for the meeting, some of the issues that the CEO and factory owner have been hiding might make it into the public eye. And who knows, having media there might make it safer for the workers – they could even speak up for their rights. And if the media reports make it back to the North American consumers, maybe we’ll get more people writing letters and speaking up at corporate stockholder meetings. Yes, I think this can work…

EVALUATION FORM