2008 Shop with a Conscience Consumer Guide

2008 Consumer Guide      Map of Factory Locations      Sweatfree Criteria   Application Process      Sweatshop Hall of Shame      Press Release

SweatFree Communities, Sweatshop Watch, and International Labor Rights Forum are excited to bring you the 2007-08 Shop with a Conscience Consumer Guide filled with excellent products made in good working conditions. We believe that one of the most important criteria for meaningful and dignified work is that workers themselves have an effective, collective voice in determining their wages and working conditions. Therefore all the products in this shopping guide are made by workers organized into democratic unions or worker-owned cooperatives. To learn more about our criteria, go here.

All retailers and wholesalers listed below have undergone a rigorous application process to give us and you the confidence that their products truly meet our sweatfree criteria. Yet, conditions may change, and we do not have the capacity to monitor any factories in person. We encourage you to help us by lending us your eyes and ears, letting us know if you hear of any concerns about human rights or worker rights violations in the workplaces below. We will immediately bring such concerns to the attention of their business customers listed in the shopping guide, knowing that they will work in partnership with us and the workers to ensure that conditions improve.

Go shopping now to support good working conditions.

Take Action!

We have also inducted the first twelve companies into the Sweatshop Hall of Shame, companies that are allegedly flouting labor laws and basic worker protections. In an industry where sweatshops are the norm rather than the exception, the working conditions highlighted in the Hall of Shame exemplify violations rampant within the global garment industry: paying workers poverty wages for long, hard hours of work under appalling conditions. However, 2008 inductees have distinguished themselves by turning a blind eye towards well-documented, serious labor violations.

Take action now to hold the Sweatshop Hall of Shame companies accountable for human rights and worker rights violations.