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Article

8 Oct 2006

Author:
Susan Chandler, Chicago Tribune

`Fair-trade' label reaches retail market

A group of corporate alumni from Lands' End [part of Sears]...have traveled the world searching for garment factories that treat workers well and pay them more than the legally required minimum wage...Late last month, they launched Fair Indigo, a catalog and Internet site offering "fair-trade" fashion aimed at mainstream…consumers...Bill Bass [is] chief executive of Fair Indigo...But extending the fair-trade designation to sweaters and jackets won't be easy...[W]hat constitutes a living wage in various countries...is a subject of debate...American Apparel Inc...plays up the fact that its T-shirts are made by domestic workers who receive good benefits...Irish rocker Bono and his wife, Ali Hewson, have launched Edun, a clothing line made...by workers in family-run factories in Africa, South Africa and India...Already, though, Bass' version of fair-trade apparel is being criticized by some anti-sweatshop activists…Fair Indigo...so far has declined to make public the names and addresses of its factories...Charles Kernaghan of the National Labor Committee…[criticized and compared Fair Indigo with] Wal-mart [and] Nike. [also refers to Levi Strauss]