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Lesson 4 - Fair Trade — in Super Stores?
Why you can't buy Fair Trade products in Super Stores (Grades 3-5)

Appropriate for older students (Grades 6-8) without the coloring book.

Background

Arts and crafts sold in Fair Trade stores are made by artisans in time consuming ways which makes them impossible to produce in the big numbers or as cheaply as super stores demand. The latter push all their suppliers to sell to them at the smallest possible amount of profit to the producers. So super store owners go to factory made sources in low wage areas of Central and Latin America, Africa and Asia to buy most of their products.

There are exceptions, for in certain super stores it is possible to buy baskets and some other crafts mainly made in Asia. But in general super stores sell very few hand made items, and sell mostly "mass produced" ones made in large buildings by hundreds of factory workers using machines which enable rapid production.

A poster produced for U.S. GLEP (now U.S. Labor Education in the Americas Project) to support the unionization demands of women workers producing shirts in Guatemala in factories called maquilla plants.

Some factories provide adequate conditions for their workers, but if workers must endure a bad working environment, lack union protections and earn low wages, they are said to work in "sweatshop" conditions. Even children toil in sweatshop factories around the world. They earn just pennies an hour and are unable to attend school or play with friends.

In contrast, children who work side by side with their parents making traditional arts and crafts rarely work such long hours they are prevented them from going to school or from having a normal life  (Maya Arts and Crafts of Guatemala, pages 2 and 6).

Since Fair Trade items are made by hand, they cost more than goods produced in a factory. For example, garments such as the huipil that the weaver wears  (Maya Arts and Crafts of Guatemala, page 7) and the one that she weaves by hand on her loom can take months to complete. The techniques she uses for the patterns are so intricate that they cannot be duplicated using a machine loom. Because of this, huipils purchased in Fair Trade stores may cost hundreds of dollars.

Although both artisans and factory employees must have patience and manual skill, it is generally true that factory worker jobs are repetitive and that some require little skill. On the other hand, artisans spend years to learn their crafts, work more slowly and unlike factory workers, are able to use their creativity by choosing different colors, patterns, etc.

A weaver uses her backstrap loom in producing an intricately patterned traditional textile. Such weaving is very "labor intensive" and can take months to complete a short length of cloth.

By just understanding a little about how artisans produce hand made items, it quickly becomes clear why they cannot be sold in super stores. People who buy in Fair Trade stores will pay more for hand made arts and crafts than they would for factory made things in super stores. But they can be confident that they have they purchased something beautiful and unique and that the artisans who made it receive a living wage which enables them to support their families and to contribute to promoting a sustainable economic system.

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