{"id":312,"date":"2015-09-04T02:41:13","date_gmt":"2015-09-04T02:41:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/helencarter.com.au\/?p=312"},"modified":"2016-01-18T03:45:34","modified_gmt":"2016-01-18T03:45:34","slug":"labour-law-and-consumer-choice","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/workn.net.au\/?p=312","title":{"rendered":"Labour Law and Consumer Choice"},"content":{"rendered":"

Reading this Daily Mail report<\/a> of the September Slurpy day at 7-11, I have to confess surprise that there was not more fall out over the 7-11 slave labour story<\/a>, which coincidentally aired on four corners less than a week ago.<\/p>\n

When something really pushes our buttons, it’s incredible what can be achieved by the social voice, and there is no better example than the Alan Jones controversy in 2012<\/a>. \u00a0 By social media and consumer activism alone Jones was punished commercially for offensive comments about\u00a0a politician. \u00a0It was remarkable and inspiring how much a united community voice could influence high level commercial activity.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0But when it comes to more mundane \u00a0abuses, such as the rights of others in the workplace, we seem quite happy to push on regardless, especially if we are getting something at budget prices.<\/p>\n

In many ways it correlates to Global trends\u00a0in the fashion industry.\u00a0\u00a0Very good work is being done by many on uncovering the origins of our fashion wear<\/a> as a response to the Rana Plaza collapse in Bangladesh. \u00a0With 1100 dead this is rated as the second worst industrial accident in world history. \u00a0Yet “where do our clothes come from” is not a question that is receiving much attention, other than around the fringes. \u00a0We all play our part in this\u00a0economy that demands a constant supply of new, cheap clothing, but we rarely stop to think who is making them or under what conditions. \u00a0All we notice is how much they cost. \u00a0 \u00a0While we can watch Four corners, \u00a0aghast at the idea of workers anywhere in Australia being paid $5 per hour, we are not prepared to turn down our fish tank full of slurpy on September 1.<\/p>\n

I’m not attempting\u00a0to lay a guilt trip on consumers. \u00a0If I was, this would be hypocritical, because I’d be just as guilty. \u00a0A busy lifestyle gives little chance for choice, let alone fully researched ethical choices. \u00a0 But modern\u00a0Australia has settled into\u00a0a strange paradigm. \u00a0\u00a0Labour law activism has been part of our culture since the industrial revolution, yet \u00a0Consumer activism is almost non-existent. \u00a0Evermore in today’s society we see these elements sitting in conflict. \u00a0How much longer can we go on demanding legal impediments to exploitation on a governmental level, but create market demand for exploitation on a consumer level? \u00a0Something has to give somewhere. \u00a0I’m not suggesting this has to be started by consumers, but we need to be ready for change.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Reading this Daily Mail report of the September Slurpy day at 7-11, I have to confess surprise that there was not more fall out over the 7-11 slave labour story, which coincidentally aired on four corners less than a week ago. When something really pushes our buttons, it’s incredible what can be achieved by the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":21,"featured_media":377,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[236],"tags":[72,74,73],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/workn.net.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/312"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/workn.net.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/workn.net.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/workn.net.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/21"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/workn.net.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=312"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/workn.net.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/312\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":320,"href":"https:\/\/workn.net.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/312\/revisions\/320"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/workn.net.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/377"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/workn.net.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=312"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/workn.net.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=312"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/workn.net.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=312"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}