This week’s Field Notes made me look at clothing differently. A T-shirt may appear to be a simple product, but behind its price tag is a global chain of decisions about who sets the price, who takes the risk, who does the work, and who has the power to demand change. The Worker Rights Consortium shows that global brands often hold the greatest influence over prices, deadlines, and production volumes, while factories compete to secure orders. That pressure does not disap

Bangladesh’s garment industry depends heavily on women, yet the people making clothes and the people managing production have historically not had equal access to power. Better Work’s Gender Equality and Returns (GEAR) program offers an interesting example of how that imbalance can change. An assessment of the program found that more than two-thirds of women who completed GEAR training were promoted to supervisory positions, while their salaries increased by roughly 40%

Criticizing global supply chains is necessary, but it raises another question: can they actually improve? Better Work, a joint ILO–IFC program, offers evidence that change is possible, but also shows how difficult it is. The garment sector employed about 65 million people across Asia and the Pacific in 2023, with women making up 55% of the workforce. Better Work evaluates factories in countries including Bangladesh, Cambodia, Indonesia, and Viet Nam, tracking labor stan

A cheap T-shirt looks simple on a store rack. The economics behind it are not. A 2026 report by Public Eye and the Clean Clothes Campaign found that global T-shirt exports grew from $15.5 billion in 2001 to $56.8 billion in 2024, while sourcing prices for basic garments have failed to keep pace with rising costs. Bangladesh now accounts for about 20% of global cotton T-shirt exports and has become especially important to European fashion markets. The report exposes a st

Global fashion supply chains are often described as efficient systems connecting brands, factories, and consumers. But the Worker Rights Consortium argues that this efficiency is built on a major imbalance of power. Global brands often control prices, production deadlines, and order volumes, while factories compete to keep contracts. The pressure then moves downward, to workers. WRC estimates that around 80 million garment workers still do not earn enough to live on, ev