"I was a garment worker. I know how the system works." - Beth Macpherson on Empowering Fashion Workers through Ethical Clothing Australia

0:00Beth Macpherson: For me, fashion is a verb. So it's too fashion. You're listening to Wardrobe Crisis with Clare Press. Join me every week as we look at sustainability, ethics and the business and madness of fashion. Hello again. I don't know where I went. Sorry for the wait. Joys of working for yourself. You can miss deadlines. Actually, I do know where I went. I got distracted writing my latest Substack, which is in response to the PETA protests about wool at Fashion Week in London and in New York. I've written quite a long piece about this and why I do not think we should boycott wool. If you don't already follow my newsletter on Substack, please do check it out.

0:44Beth Macpherson: It's also where listeners can support the podcast and help me keep making it. Anyway, our series on workers' rights continues. This week, the focus is Australia. We've just had Ethical Clothing Australia Week here, which highlights that organisation that accredits local clothing businesses that manufacture domestically. And they work with the TCF union to conduct audits and ensure that workers' rights are upheld. I've done a bunch of stuff with the ECA over the years, things like hosting panels and interviewing garment workers. and one of the things that always comes up is people say surely worker exploitation doesn't happen here it's an offshore thing they think sadly that is not the case we don't get to say that I'm afraid I'll leave it to my guest this week to explain why she is Beth McPherson she's always actually been the one I wanted to interview from the union side here I've been trying to persuade her for like two years why because well because of her deep experience but also her own personal story, Beth started out as a teenager in the 70s working for a shoe factory in Geelong in Victoria.

1:55Beth Macpherson: Now these days she is the National Compliance Officer for TUF2 which is the Timber Furnishing and Textile Union. It's taken a few different forms over the years the Textile and Clothing Union. Until last year it was part of the much bigger CFMEU manufacturing division and back in the day it was the Australian Textile Workers Union which was formed in 1919. We discuss the evolution and changing shape of domestic manufacturing in Australia in the clothing, textiles and footwear sector, what's gone and what's left, Beth's own experience working in factories during the boom time before production moved offshore, textile and sewing skills and how and why our governments should take them seriously into the future, the increasing use of outworkers today and how they can be invisible or fall through the cracks, and how many outworkers here are migrant women who come from non-English speaking backgrounds and often don't understand their rights as Australian workers.

2:58Beth Macpherson: If you like this, please do help us share at Fire and Wide. Remember, links and further reading can be found on thewardrobecrisis.com. Thank you as ever for listening and supporting the show Alright, welcome to the Wardrobe Crisis Podcast, Beth McPherson Thank you, happy to be here Beth, we've done a few events together now around Ethical Clothing Australia activations Also Fashion Revolution Week And I actually asked you if you'd do this podcast a while ago Because you've got a really, I think, unique perspective on this industry with a long view You've seen the changes, right? Yes I want to start with what are some of the presumptions that people have about the garment industry in Australia today?

3:44Beth Macpherson: Is it about, like I was thinking, maybe the first thing people say is, well, do we even have one?

3:48Clare Press: Yeah. Well, that's true. People aren't aware that the industry is still thriving in Australia. It looks different, of course. They use different business models these days and what they did in the 70s and 80s. It's more not the big factories, even though we have some, but it's more outsourcing to various small suppliers down the supply chain. So the industry is still a large industry nationally. It covers all areas right from design right through to dispatch and a whole range of types of garments and products. And there are some parts that are growing quite rapidly and that's in value adding and in the knitting machine arrangement.

4:31Clare Press: you know, knitting of jumpers and stuff like that, not knitted fabrics.

4:35Beth Macpherson: Although yesterday at a Melbourne Fashion Week event, just by chance, I was listening to a panel about artisanal production of the future and Stephen from MKT, a fantastic knitting factory just outside of Melbourne, was talking about, he's been here for like 30, 40 years doing this incredible work, high-end knitted wool and cotton. Yes. So we do have it. Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. There's also, outside of fashion, a fairly sizable kind of uniform and industry here, making workwear, making, I don't know, uniforms for care workers, school uniforms maybe. Yes, school uniforms are still big in Australia.

5:11Clare Press: And Defence.

5:13Beth Macpherson: Oh, Defence. And we do have, actually, some iconic footwear brands that still produce here, although we keep losing more and more of them. But RM Williams is still producing in South Australia. Yes, yeah, Redback Boots, still here. Is the Blundstone business gone?

5:25Clare Press: they bloodstones only make gumboots in tasmania the rest is offshore okay so a kind of diverse

5:32Beth Macpherson: portfolio but obviously shrunk over the years but that myth that do we even have an industry let's bust it we do have an industry yes all right i was also thinking of one that i certainly hear which is and you and i've talked about it on stages exploitation is something that happens somewhere else wherever that might be offshore in places that don't have our values and structure and laws.

5:53Clare Press: It's not true. No, it's not. People say to me all the time, oh no, I buy Australian made, so it's all good. Unfortunately, that's not the truth. There are very strong laws in Australia around supply chain transparency and where the work is being done and the laws around that and how people are treated, regardless of whether they're working in factories or in their homes. And unfortunately, they aren't met. Obviously, the union's on the ground all the time policing those laws. So that's what keeps us busy. It is a myth to think that that sort of level of exploitation doesn't happen here.

6:28Beth Macpherson: You are the TCF Textile Clothing and Footwear Union's National Compliance Officer.

6:34Clare Press: What is that? So my role is I manage the team of eight people that do the compliance audits for Ethical Clothing Australia. What we do is when a company applies for accreditation. We go out and we speak to the company and they provide us with records to show that they're paying the right rate of pay, that all the accruals are being accrued correctly for annual leave and personal carers leave, that annual leave loading is paid, that superannuation is up to date and has been over the last 12 months. We actually scrutinise quite deeply to ensure that what they're showing us is correct and then one of the really key parts of that is that we meet with the workers.

7:21Clare Press: We talk to the workers about some of the things that we've identified that may be issues, sometimes occupational health and safety risks within the workplace so we talk to the workers about that. We talk to them if we found an underpayment or something needs to be rectified and we follow up with the workers after that to ensure that that is being corrected.

7:41Beth Macpherson: So at a very simple level compliance is ensuring that businesses are actually doing what they say they are doing but also that they are observing the good laws that we do have in this country.

7:51Clare Press: Yes so all we're asking companies to do is to meet the laws of the land we don't ask them to do anything else.

7:58Beth Macpherson: When we consider compliance internationally it's the same thing so there are different minimum wage laws in different countries there are worker protections in different countries that vary but when a big brand sends in an external auditor they're looking at compliance.

8:13Clare Press: Unfortunately we've done quite a bit of research on offshore certifications and accreditations and what we find is that they don't scrutinise the way that we would. So they're not looking at individual workers rights they'll look at what the company well there's a couple of different versions. So one is that the company completes a tick box exercise and gets the tick off based on what they've provided. Some are a little bit more where they actually go in and they look at certain areas and they talk to workers that usually are appointed by a company. So the problem with that is that when we talk to workers, we find out a lot of information.

8:56Clare Press: So there's a lot of things that we can't see. When we go in, we can look around, it might look okay, paperwork looks great but it's not until we have those conversations with workers that we actually realise that there is other hazards in the workplace that aren't you know visible such as you know bullying harassment there could be time pressures there could be unsafe other workplace like temperature of the workplace they've turned the heater on because I'm coming or they've turned the cooler on because I'm coming so there's also those sort of things where we get feedback from the workers so we can get them rectified as well.

9:29Beth Macpherson: Can we talk about unions as something essential, but also what they actually do? I would imagine there would be listeners who hadn't really considered the role of unions, or maybe even have a perception that unions are something from the past, something anti-competitive. I don't know. There's a long history of unions doing essential work to ensure that human rights move on through history. But why would you say unions are so important in the textile and clothing and footwear sector?

10:02Clare Press: Okay, so there's the history of what unions do speaks for itself. So the annual day. The eight hour day. Yeah, the public holidays, superannuation.

10:12Beth Macpherson: Even that though, Beth, when you say that, we just presume that nine to five is how we do things, but it wasn't always how we did things.

10:19Clare Press: No, it wasn't. There was a lot of workers that worked really hard and fought really hard and had strikes etc to be able to achieve an old day. And weekends. Yeah and weekend penalties you know the five-day week you know all of those things weren't just given to workers they were hard fought for. By unions so let's start really with what is a union what do they do? In its basic form it advocates for workers and workers rights. What that means is that they will lobby governments for better legislation to protect workers in the workplace whether that's occupational health and safety it could be the hourly rate of pay all sorts of other conditions like we know that the superannuation is increased now to 12 percent that didn't just happen that was a long fight that the unions took up to be able to achieve that but unions are member organizations

11:13Beth Macpherson: with workers at their heart. So you join a union as a worker. Maybe you pay dues. Do you have to pay to join? Yes, yes. Yes, everybody pays a fee. And then the leadership is taken from workers. Union leaders are workers too, right? Yes, yes, yes. And the point is you're sitting down at a table, presumably with the employers, and trying to figure out how you can come to an agreement.

11:33Clare Press: In some cases, if the workers are seeking an enterprise bargaining agreement, there is negotiations around bettering what would be in an award. But there's other things that the union advocates for workers every day. Unfortunately, in a lot of workplaces, workers are treated quite badly. They're working in unsafe environments. The workloads are unrealistic. You know, there could be bullying or harassment in the workplace. So the workers are then able to contact the union and the organiser then goes and assists that worker to achieve a better outcome and deal with whatever that may be.

12:10Beth Macpherson: just historically i'll share some links for this but for example in the united states when the new deal came in think about the depression when nobody had any jobs and that huge numbers of people were unemployed and absolutely living on the poverty line then you had the war which caused further disruption after that there was a coming together basically of industry and workers to say we can't carry on like this we need to put in some structures that provide basic levels of care for members of society and actually the welfare state finds its origins in that history right if we didn't have worker unions it wouldn't have happened you have to have representation from the the majority which is those doing the work it can't just be left up to the capitalist to decide how they're going to structure society sounds pretty basic but that's actually what it is that that's

12:56Clare Press: true and and you know also it's not just about workplace rights i mean the unions advocate for social change look at you know our health care system thousands of workers on the streets hundreds and thousands of workers on the street lobbying to keep that. Not that long ago. I mean, our poor work is obviously protecting workers and advocating for workers in their workplace, making sure that they're achieving their workplace rights, but it goes broader than that. The union movement have always been involved in broader points of social change.

13:24Beth Macpherson: Absolutely. Beth, I've been reading all these books about economics, Marxism, fascism, trying to get my head around actually particularly America and why I feel like it's descending into chaos. but I was trying to re-read the stuff that I read 25 years ago at university to try and understand what are the structures that deliver progress in society or that can help wind it back when they all disappear and it kept coming back to unions for me through all these different texts that I was reading from lots of different perspectives. I read a book by this guy Martin Wolf who's kind of a right-wing like a World Bank dude.

13:54Beth Macpherson: His book's called I think it's called The Crisis in Democracy but he is even this kind of let's call him a boss a fat cat boss from the World Bank he was talking about this need to have union representation and this general sense of decency where those in different areas of society connect and figure out how they're going to move forwards if you lose workers rights and workers voices in this you actually end up with authoritarianism and despotism that's what I think that's right that's what you really yes but anyway contextually however we are seeing i understand you might be able to correct me on this beth but a decline in union membership across the board not just tcf but i mean i'm from media companies don't want you to join unions i remember when condo nast finally allowed workers to have a union it was about four years ago such a struggle i mean they want you not to organize it's easier if you're if you're quiet and you don't make a fuss but is union membership declining generally and if so why According to the ABS, Australian Bureau of Statistics, in general, union memberships declined since the 90s.

15:03Beth Macpherson: From 1992 to 2024, the proportion of employees who were trade union members fell from 40 % to 13%. That seems crazy.

15:12Clare Press: Well, I've got some good news. Union membership has grown. It's grown by 12%. Since then? Yep. Really? Yep. And what we're seeing is Gen Z, very involved in social justice and there's been a real influx of young people wanting change in their workplaces. Really? And to achieve that, they become part of the collective. I thought you were going to say the reasons why are

15:39Beth Macpherson: because younger people are disengaged from this or it seems historic but you're saying no, it's coming back.

15:44Clare Press: Yes, yes. They are really engaging because their needs are now different to those of the past. I mean, we all know housing is a major issue and, like I said, unions advocate for social change.

15:58Beth Macpherson: Precariarity as well. Yes. Thinking of the gig economy and how essentially this idea of a job for life that your parents might have strived for is just completely out of reach. It's not possible. You'd be very lucky today to find a secure long-term job that you can say, in five years I want to move up the ranks.

16:16Clare Press: Yes and so all of those platforms are now working more as a collective and you know I mean you just have to look at the media what's happening particularly in business just recently in the findings of you know underpayments and wage theft it's a concern to every working person um and because it's becoming more rampant or more recognized um than it ever has you know sort of in the last 10 or 20 years people are saying well what does that mean for me you know i need to go and check that my superannuation's up to date or am i getting the right rate of pay and it's actually making people rethink what a union does and what it can do for them as well not them as an individual but them

17:07Beth Macpherson: as a collective i mean i do think there's definitely as you said amongst some sections of society and maybe it is a gen z move to towards this collectivism like we're getting sick of selfish individualism maybe maybe i'm just speaking for myself but i do see it among students people are just fed up with this sort of corporate greed that's delivering us climate disaster not just economic disaster or like you say you can't imagine ever buying a house like your parents used to be able to dream of all of this is adding up to a feeling of like hang on it isn't serving us to be only in competition and only about the individual or if you think I keep coming back to America but the idea of the American dream that anybody can make it in the US no because the structures are not there to allow you to move up actually the only people to move up are people with generational wealth yes such a ranter but that's how I feel I'm really feeling frustrated at the moment about all this all right I would like to go back in time please if you will Beth because maybe there are some parallels between this era and the 70s you tell me but when you were very young you got your first job was it in a was it as a binder in a footwear factory

18:13Clare Press: yeah so I started in the industry back in 1974 and I started as a binder operator in a shoe factory what is that pardon what is that it's where you pour caro over a piece of leather and you put it through a folder if you like on a machine and it runs around the top of the shoe or around the side that you're depending on where you're putting the binding and so that's how I started in the industry. How old were you? I was just nearly 15.

18:42Beth Macpherson: Wow.

18:43Clare Press: Yes.

18:44Beth Macpherson: And where you grew up in Geelong is it there? Yes. Yes. How did you get that job and who taught you?

18:49Clare Press: So back in the day there used to be.

18:51Beth Macpherson: And also hang

18:52Clare Press: on why are you getting a job at 14? Well. People did? Yeah people did like I had to move out home I'm at 15.

19:00Beth Macpherson: My mum moved out of home at 16, lived on her own and was a secretary. But at 16, you just think, I think, no, babe.

19:07Clare Press: Oh, I know. I know. You can't think about that now. You think, oh, you know, you look at your children or your grandchildren and think, oh, you know, I was living on my own by then, you know. It's really a strange concept. But that's what you did then, you know. You were out on your own by 15. and so myself and my friends because we had to find somewhere to live we needed to get a job university options weren't open to us we were from a lower socioeconomic area and I was the

19:36Beth Macpherson: youngest of six not many opportunities uh and was there a was there a pressure on you to stay in school or were you told like my mum was told my mum was told you're a girl yes so you don't need to stay in school oh absolutely it's actually i find that mad yeah yeah so that was what it was

19:53Clare Press: like yes so women weren't seen as having a career or any options like if you were if you're so crazy if you were a female you're just going to get married and have children anyway it was just a waste of money and time to have an education really it was you know you get out there you get a job you're now old enough to stand on your own two feet and that's what you've got to do And so that's what we did. And so we went into a hub for a number of weeks where we learnt how to sew. And during that time, we got a minimum wage. And so we were able to use that to live on.

20:29Beth Macpherson: That's actually very important. Notwithstanding the fact that you may be listening to this thinking, what, why are you working at 15 beyond a Saturday job? But this is just how the times were, as we've said. But there were benefits to this because you were paid to train and the programs to train you were present and worked. Yes.

20:46Clare Press: And you liked it? Yes. Oh, you know, I mean, you like anything when you're 15. So we trained in that hub and then they just said, you know, these are the opportunities.

21:00Beth Macpherson: But when I said you liked it, it's because we were chatting about this the other day and you were saying you did, you were excited. You were like, this is cool, we're going to learn some stuff, we'll get paid, we'll get money in our pockets.

21:07Clare Press: Yeah, I mean, that's really all you were thinking about, just doing something that was different. Like none of us really could sew. Even though we did sewing at school, but it was very bad and very different to what, you know, in reality when you go into a factory, it's completely different. Yeah, different to the machine.

21:23Beth Macpherson: Yeah. But your friends were doing it too. It was a pathway that lots of people followed.

21:29Clare Press: And the only reason we chose that shoe factory was because that was near the flat that we rented. It all sort of made sense. But because of the environment in the factory, I couldn't stay very – I stayed about 12 months. but the caro burnt my hands.

21:47Beth Macpherson: What's caro? I know you said, but what is it? Kerosene.

21:51Clare Press: Yeah, so we used to thought. Is that what you're doing? Yeah.

21:53Beth Macpherson: And it burnt?

21:54Clare Press: It was? It was burning my hands. Oh, wow. So I had like a dermatitis type thing that I couldn't really get on top of.

22:00Beth Macpherson: God, do you want to talk about like what are the issues at work? This is factory work. This is the kind of thing you're talking about. Did you wear a mask?

22:06Clare Press: No. Oh, no. Did you wear special gloves? No. You just did it. So there was no PPE back in the early 70s.

22:14Beth Macpherson: um it was to you wanted to find an alternative yes so then looked at clothing factories because

22:20Clare Press: we now had skill we had experience and so i moved into a fashion factory there was like back then it was about 200 workers and i operated a automatic overlocker i've never seen one since

22:35Beth Macpherson: but that's what i operated and you were like 16 at this point yeah yeah yeah yep and quite experience when you it's your second job yes I want to just touch on where you were so for international listeners Geelong is a Victorian city if you've never visited Beth do you want to paint us a picture what made the city tick how was its economy it was the wool city of the world at one point right it's still home to the National Wool Museum so textiles but it was also cars and heavy industry I understand it was like oil and aluminium so it was a big industry town it was

23:07Clare Press: and we had also the big shell refinery there as well. It was a regional centre but it had a lot of job opportunities. There was a lot of factories, clothing factories, textile factories in particular because after I finished at the clothing and had a family, I went back into textiles and worked in a carpet mill. Back in the 70s, there was opportunities everywhere. There was just work everywhere and that's when Quicksilver and Rip Curl first kicked off. Oh, the surf chains. Yeah, in Torquay. So most of the sewing that I did was for them in the factories.

23:41Beth Macpherson: So again, if you're listening to this in Europe or in the States and you're thinking Geelong, what? I bet you know those now magic names of surf, which then were brought out and became huge companies, Quicksilver, Rip Curl. Because all the surfing that was happening along, what is it, Bells, that kind of Victorian coastline.

24:01Clare Press: Yeah, so it was born out of Torquay. and I worked at home for about just on two years as an outworker and I did the rip curl work at home as well.

24:11Beth Macpherson: But picture this, so 70s, so much diversity of opportunity in manufacturing. You were saying carpet mill, let's just park the whole oil and aluminium thing but this was an industrial centre where it wasn't hard to get a job. No. What happened?

24:28Clare Press: Well, because I was in the TCF sector, when the tariffs started to reduce, and particularly through the 80s, you've seen a reduction of opportunity. So a lot of the factories closed because a lot of the work was going offshore. There was a lot of influx and competition with imports.

24:48Beth Macpherson: So essentially the government pursued a policy of opening up to globalisation, reducing protections on domestic production. Yes. And the industry flew offshore where labour costs were cheaper.

25:01Clare Press: Yes. And those that stayed or didn't go down that path, they also struggled as well because of the imports. And so they couldn't compete.

25:11Beth Macpherson: There's also, I'll share a link to this because I remember writing this in one of my books, one of the things that led to this globalisation of fashion supply chains, apart from change in the tariff system, was actually the invention of the shipping container Because suddenly you can bring in just, it's so cheap to bring in masses and masses of cheap goods. And before that, it just wasn't a thing. Now we think about flying and stuff. But the shipping container thing was a revolution for an influx of cheap rubbish we didn't want.

25:40Clare Press: We didn't know we wanted. That's right. So unless you had a niche market or had something special or operated in a different way or pushed it underground where out workers were being used at an exploited rate, then you could survive.

25:58Beth Macpherson: Do you remember that time when business stopped booming or domestic production stopped booming? And what did it do to communities like the one that you grew up?

26:06Clare Press: Look, it was devastating because there was hundreds of people without a job. And I'm really strong on the fact that not everybody can go to university. Even if they have the opportunity, they may not necessarily want to take that path not everybody's built for hospitality like it it just removal of that type of work made it really difficult because it meant that people were very limited in their options

26:33Beth Macpherson: about what do I do now yeah and it's an under-discussed topic there's just this idea that these the professionalism is the pathway and you chase it you know it's like you hope that your kids will go to university and become what marketing managers or maybe doctors who knows but actually yeah not everyone wants to do that or is good at that or would thrive in that and the i hate to sort of sound worthy but it's true the dignity in making stuff is actually important and when you know the pride you get in we did a good podcast with marielle chamberlain about this talking about communities used to be proud to make stuff and they'd say that it felt good that you if the jobs were good.

27:17Beth Macpherson: Of course, there's bad jobs where it felt bad. But generally speaking, there was this, I'm from the north of England, so there was this pride in making stuff. Like, everyone worked in the same industry and everyone made stuff and held communities together. When you take that away, you've just got generations of unemployment. Yes. And people feel left behind.

27:35Clare Press: You know, we know there's long-term unemployed. There's people with disabilities. There's people from disadvantaged backgrounds. These are the sort of people that went into our sector. There's so much opportunity that is just being missed by governments not taking the initiative. Like I said, I've been working in the industry a very, very long time and we were proud. We really enjoyed our work. You talk to outworkers now or workers in our industry and they're still proud. They're still proud that what they're achieving, what they're making, what the brands that they are, they're always speaking about.

28:12Clare Press: But it's important to them. It's part of their identity. What brought you into the union movement? I've always been a union member. Back in the day, it was compulsory. As soon as you walked into the factory... Oh, everyone did it.

28:26Beth Macpherson: Was it actually compulsory or just it was the culture?

28:29Clare Press: No, you just joined. That was part of what you did. I've always been an advocate for social change and been involved in Geelong's different campaigns for social justice and yeah so I've always been heavily involved.

28:45Beth Macpherson: Do you remember an inciting incident? Was there a time where you were like hey this is a problem I want to be part of solving it?

28:51Clare Press: Oh look you know there was many probably but the biggest one that sort of made me part of the union structure was when I was working at the textile mill. We had a major harassment claim that I was part of. The whole of my section that I was working with decided to take some action about it. It had been going on for a long time and people were too scared to stand together. And I always said to them, when it happens to me, that's going to be the end. I said, yeah, either with me or without me, without you, I'm going ahead. Of course, yeah, my day came. So what bosses? It was from a boss, yeah. Like sexual harassment?

29:33Clare Press: It was sexual, physical, emotional. Really? Yeah. And it had been going on for a long time. I was going to say you've got to be quite brave as a young woman or as a worker who, considering the power imbalance, stands up to it. Oh, by that time I was in my 30s. Yeah, so. You're a formidable force. I'm not putting up with this shit. Yeah. So, yeah, so I was a little bit older by then.

29:59Beth Macpherson: No, but, I mean, there were pathways to, okay, I quit. Well, this is what had happened. You were like, no, I want to change this. Yes. That's different.

30:05Clare Press: So a lot of women before me and males, so it wasn't impacted on females, it was impacted on males as well, young males, and they went up to complain they never come back. We never seen them again. And so nothing changed. And so when, like I said, it happened to me, I said, that's it. And luckily everybody came in behind me and we made change. So that person was terminated. There was a court case, of course, because the company pushed back initially.

30:35Beth Macpherson: But that's also often when I do these interviews with people around activism, whatever it may be, they come back to this idea of an early win or a win that proves change is possible. If you don't have that, think about climate movement activists telling me this stuff too. You've got to have hope. You've got to have a time when you said, I stood up and said, this is what the change I want to see, but then it actually happens.

30:57Clare Press: Yes. Because it fuels the work, right? Yeah. Yeah. Just after that, I wasn't the union delegate at the time. Our union delegate was a male from a different department that didn't support what we were doing. So I sort of stepped up and led the charge on that. And then afterwards, I become a union delegate and continued to do that for a number of years.

31:19Beth Macpherson: troublemakers it's so powerful but there is this uh trope easy to dismiss whingy woman troublemaker

31:28Clare Press: stop making a fuss gotta fight that oh look yeah i mean that goes without sight and you're gonna you're gonna cop that regardless but i ignored all that years later when i was representing predominantly women in two sections i never let that stop me you know like there's a problem fix

31:45Beth Macpherson: The reason why I commented on it is because I'm always interested in what makes people tick. Do you think it's because you're stubborn or do you think it's because you have a heightened sense of injustice or is it because you want to, you need to speak for those who haven't got the platform or is it all of the above?

32:03Clare Press: What is it? What drives it? Oh, look, probably a little bit of all of the above. I feel really passionate about workers' rights and being in the factories for such a long time myself and, you know, like copying the kicks in the guts many, many times when I go in to talk to workers. Metaphorically.

32:20Beth Macpherson: Nice Australian. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Nice Australian. Yeah, yeah.

32:24Clare Press: When I go in to talk to workers, I can relate to exactly who they are. You've been there. Yeah, I've been there. Including as an out worker. Yes. And that really helps me with my work because I know in small factories don't let them talk to me while I'm there. because the repercussions is they'll probably get set because that's what used to happen. So I always leave a card and say, don't talk now, give me a call later.

32:49Beth Macpherson: Yeah, because it remains dangerous to speak out. You've probably heard, if you're a regular listener to this podcast, us talk about those dangers, which in some countries can be, and I'm quoting Thala Muin from Cambodia talking about life and liberty. It literally gets down to that. But even if it isn't such high stakes, it still lose your income or, you know, yeah, face the possibility of being fired. This is dangerous work, speaking out.

33:18Clare Press: Yes. You know, you talk about them, you know, losing their job. Sometimes it's even worse than that where they just get ridiculed and bullied and harassed and eventually they're forced to leave anyway. But they've had to endure some really bad behaviour and there's no way I would put a worker in that position. And I have trained my team to do the same. Most of my team are from the industry anyway. So everybody's sort of got a clear understanding about sort of, you know, what it's like to be a worker in the industry.

33:53Beth Macpherson: So here's something I prepared earlier. I just want to put some context around how the industry has shrunk. So it's not so long since most people who lived in cities would have had some sort of connection with manufacturing. Like we're sitting here on this busy road in Melbourne. if you even go back to like the 80s you would have or if you went into the city around flinders lane there was still rag trade stuff there was still factories even if there were micro factories work being done things being made when you can see it down the road chances are someone you know works in it you've got access in the post-war period Australians were wary of being overly reliant on imported goods and demand for made in Australia grew so there was like a boom in the 60s tcf was the country's fifth largest employer you could often trace your locally sewn garment right back to the farm on all on aussie soil so you got your wool your cotton grown here but the mills were here that spinning was here and then the cut and sew was here in 1962 australian producers were supplying 97.5 percent of the australian apparel market so like almost everything that was sold in shops was made here fast forward and also the list of I'll put it in the show notes.

35:03Beth Macpherson: I won't read it all out. But the list of all the stuff we did was so comprehensive. Like we were scouring the wool here. We were doing man-made fibers here too. We were making terraline if you want that. No, you don't. But, you know, it wasn't just all natural fibers. We were producing, printing, dyeing, finishing, all these different fabrics and yarns in this country. 70 years on, most of this capability has disappeared. And according to the Australian Fashion Council today, less than three percent of new clothing sold in australia was made here so the context is a massive shrinking of the market but like you said we are still doing stuff here there's also been this huge move towards out workers if you don't know what that means you said you were one what is an out worker and how are their how is their situation different to that of someone who works in a factory?

35:53Clare Press: Okay, an outworker is somebody that is working from home. So they've got their sewing machine set up and the company that they work for gives them work and they sew that work at home and then it's given back to the company. Everything else is the same as a factory worker. Back in the 1980s, the Federal Award was amended to deem outworkers as employees. And since then, you know, there's more changes in the 90s and again in 2012. And these were all to support outworkers and deem them to be employees. And they have equal rights as those in a factory. But what we're finding is they're hidden. Every time there's economic pressures, more goes underground to the outworkers.

36:38Clare Press: Why did you do it? Is it because you've got kids to look after?

36:41Beth Macpherson: What's the appeal?

36:42Clare Press: Most of the outworkers that we deal with now are Vietnamese. so there's language barriers there's child caring responsibilities or other family member responsibilities lack of you know transport and infrastructures that they can tap into but so for

37:00Beth Macpherson: a vietnamese australian first generation immigrant for example at the beginning and actually still many of those so is the same they're the same people because we're aging we're aging workers out and younger people aren't taking over but anyway that's another story but there were bonuses to this because you had freedom you could fit it around your domestic duties also presumably in this dwindling factory climate there was less possibility to go and work in a physical factory

37:26Clare Press: well probably not back when they started unfortunately because they're out workers and they're migrant workers they do not know their rights and so this has caused massive problems for them they're working seven days a week 10 12 hours a day oh so the brands like it more because yes but they're getting the rate of pay they're getting is less than an average 38

37:50Beth Macpherson: hour week once upon a time when i had my label i made a few so in between working in magazines i had four years where i had a shop a vintage store in sydney and i used to make a small number of vintage inspired dresses and i had a wonderful pattern maker we talked about her in a previous podcast hello alicia and then i used to try and get these things made it was very difficult because no one wanted to tell me who they used. I had friends with brands who would be like, I'm not telling you that. And then I found some makers through word of mouth. And I've seen what I've seen how it goes. So a guy would come in a van and pick it up, pick up the cup work, or I'd go pick up the cup work because that's how I did it.

38:28Beth Macpherson: Take it back to the office in a big sack. And then a guy would come and pick it up in a van and take it off to who knows, I never met them. And that was in Sydney. You know, I'd meet one of them, but I didn't actually know who was doing it. and okay it was only 10 dresses but I can exactly see how a lack of transparency comes in this system so you're dealing with a sort of I want to say middleman but you're dealing with one person who's then fielding out the work to other people but you never you may never see them you said I

38:57Clare Press: certainly didn't go to their homes well that's why the need for transparency but also recovery of money so the supply chain was introduced because what would happen is that we would go into a outworkers premises and they would say oh you know i've done all this work you know they've picked it up you know and they are classified as middlemen that's what they call them is that and there can be numerous people that i paid him so much money by the way bags of money i wonder if i ever went and everybody takes a cut yeah and so by the time it gets the outworker there's very limited money but we can never find that person we don't we don't know who's like you who's actually doing it who's actually doing the sewing but you know who's bringing the sewing to

39:39Beth Macpherson: the out worker and the reason I tell that story even though literally I'm talking about 10 dresses is that I firsthand have been part of that and not really questioned it at the time it did not occur to me to say who is sewing this all I thought was why is the binding wonky and why did you cost me so much money and this is really stressful but I didn't actually I mean it's a long time previous to my education around sustainability but my instinct was not to question it was just to question the quality and say why is it so expensive but I didn't know but what's sort of terrible about this story is I wasn't curious in the right way to ask just never occurred to me

40:23Clare Press: so that must be quite common yes it is very common and like I said that's why those laws were introduced and so where we find an outworker doing a label and they can't identify who gave them the work we will go back to the label and say this outwork is owed x amount of dollars you need to pay.

40:39Beth Macpherson: I've never thought about that actually Beth until this discussion but if you imagine that at scale you can see how a lack of transparency slips into the system even though as you said we've got robust laws and it shouldn't be that way.

40:53Clare Press: And that's what keeps us busy every day. One of the key things that we do is education. We try to educate particularly young designers that are starting out that there is an award that covers our industry and under law they've got an obligation to be aware of it and apply it.

41:11Beth Macpherson: And even when I'm thinking about Helen, who's now gone, who was another person that I used to take my work to, who used to make for a romance, was born, she was brilliant. But did she do it? I don't know. You know, I thought she did. You should have one woman in a little tiny shop in the back of Surrey Hills. She probably didn't do well. I mean, I'm just saying, the system of outworkers, even on a very small scale with independent business, independent labels, is not... Yes, unfortunately, that's how it happens.

41:40Clare Press: But also it happens on a much bigger scale as well.

41:43Beth Macpherson: So how much have things improved for outworkers today, given that there are these suite of protections that have been brought in since the 80s and given that there is, well, you've got your eyes on it, but how much has it improved? Is it getting worse? Is it getting better?

41:59Clare Press: Like I said, it depends on the economic situation. So every time things get tough, more work goes underground. We police it daily. I've got an Outwork outreach team that visits community. We have Zooms, newsletters. We have events where we engage really closely with the outworker communities and we try and get that education out far and wide within those groups.

42:24Beth Macpherson: Is the demographic changing? You were saying that most of the outworkers that you're dealing with then and now were Vietnamese Australians. Is it changing as immigration patterns change?

42:35Clare Press: Yeah, well, we know there's some African dialects coming in to that space. Very little at this stage. They're more moving into our factory environments, but we are across it. I mean, they're not all Vietnamese. There's some Chinese, and we've also got a Chinese team member, and there's, you know, other nationalities, but in very small pockets.

42:56Beth Macpherson: Talk about the challenges that come with English being a second language or not a first language. You said some workers just, for example, aren't aware of their rights.

43:06Clare Press: Well, they're not because they don't understand the English language. Companies, labels, brands, fashion houses, whatever you like to call them, they rely on that. They rely on the fact that these workers are isolated. They don't know what they're... Knowingly. Pardon? You said they rely on it.

43:23Beth Macpherson: Do you think that it... Oh, I do. Yeah, it benefits. Absolutely. They think it's... They know and they think, good. Oh, absolutely. I can get away with it. Yep.

43:30Clare Press: Really? Yep, absolutely. That's depressing. In the majority of cases, yes. And, you know, we... I've got plenty of evidence of that. Evidence in the sense that as soon as we find it, we obviously then approached the label brand fashion house and we talked started an education piece those that engage with us and work with us to achieve an outcome a positive outcome that's all well and good but there's a lot that don't and that goes to prosecution you're talking to

43:57Beth Macpherson: businesses every day what challenges are they facing i'm talking about the ones that i mean i don't even know if you can demarcate the bad actors from the ones who want to do well but let's presume most people want to do as well as they can what challenges are they facing and how

44:11Clare Press: can we help them to do better look i think market share and a fair playing field is challenging for companies because with all the imports that are coming in and just you know just the scale that we're talking about is challenging for business yeah absolutely and companies talk about that all at the time. There's also the introduction of AI and innovation and are they ready for that and what does that mean and you know there's all of this technological change and it's all right if you're a big company and you've got a department that can look at that and research that and develop what you need but the majority of the companies in Australia do not have that option and so they're struggling they're struggling to be able to come to terms with all those changes

45:02Beth Macpherson: just touch on why ethical clothing australia accreditation is so powerful look i think it

45:08Clare Press: gives the companies an option to come on board and get all the education assistance they need and i've had quite a few companies when i start working with them to say oh look i tried to work this out myself and look there's so much stuff online and you know i i just didn't know where start and the award's so complex to read and all of that sort of stuff. And they say, look, you've made it so easy. Because what we try to do is to educate them, but not in a fancy technical way. It's like basic, this is what you need to do. This is why you have to do it. And we can help you. We can help you do it.

45:45Clare Press: And so we always provide all the templates or forms that they need. So or lawyers to redevelop the wheel. We provide them everything. Even once they're accredited, there's always changes in legislation, always something that's happening that they hear about in the news and they don't understand. And so they give us a ring and say, oh, look, I've just heard this. What does this mean? And we're able to provide them that education as well.

46:14Beth Macpherson: Let's finish on what you would like to see happen in the future, and I want to just focus on the training, because given that when you started, you had the opportunity, albeit for a limited period of time but to spend a few weeks learning the skills required to do a new job at the moment we don't really have that and I was gobsmacked to learn that there is no apprenticeship formal apprenticeship training program in Australia in sewing like you can learn to be a mechanic in a plumber and you can get a qualification through TAFE but you can't get that in TCF and if we want to reshore and we hear so much talk about it how are we going to do it if We're not equipping the next generation rather than relying on the older people to actually do this work.

46:56Beth Macpherson: We're losing the skills, aren't we?

46:58Clare Press: Yeah, I mean, that's a huge issue in Australia. But, you know, there's a whole range of things. We need to showcase the industry as a live and thriving industry. You know, for many, many years it was painted as a dying industry and so the interest in being part of it was just not there. And whether there was career path and opportunity, That also needs to be showcased, what the local industry looks like and what career opportunities are there from design to dispatch, including the sewing machines and recognising that as a trade. Would you like to see government policy reflect that? Yeah, yeah, I sure would.

47:39Clare Press: I'd like a few things. I'd like the reintroduction of relevant TAFE courses and training opportunities for people in our industry, governments to commit a percentage to local manufacture because it's just a false economy.

47:52Beth Macpherson: So if we say about 3 % of what's sold here is made here, what would you like to see?

47:57Clare Press: Oh, I think governments have got a responsibility to look at everything there. But what, 10%, 20 %? Well, I don't want to put a percentage on it. I think that gives them an out. Look, if it was me, I'd 100%. But that's not going to be achievable. Nothing like being ambitious. That's not going to be achievable. But I think there needs to be a commitment because this will allow the industry to have security of work, to invest and grow. And without that security, they are not going to do that. It's too high a risk. And I think back in the day, government supported industry and now they don't. Not to the extent that they need to.

48:36Clare Press: And so they need to come to the party and support our local industry to grow and have the security that they need to invest.

48:46Beth Macpherson: And do you think, looking back at your 15-year-old self, that you can imagine a future version of Beth doing this again? Like, are we going to get younger people back into this industry?

48:57Clare Press: Look, we've seen a dribble of that in different areas. But I think, again, the industry has been promoted as somewhere that, you know, it's dying. You know, there's no long-term career opportunities, where in fact there's many. and I think it needs to be showcased as something that is worth. And the other thing too, I mean, you learn a skill you take for life. You know, even me, I still snow. So at home, you know, because it is a skill and I just think you should be proud of it. Yeah, and there's so many different areas of our industry that different types of people of different interests can tap into.

49:37Beth Macpherson: Maybe not the kerosene application of the shoe binding.

49:40Clare Press: I doubt whether they do that anymore. I would suggest that that's not happening. Yes. But, you know, there's all sorts of elements. You don't have to be a machinist. There's QC. There's, you know, there's so cutters, textile mechanics, you know, like there's so many. Honestly, if I were a kid now with a real kind of aptitude for craft,

50:04Beth Macpherson: the idea of being a weaver or listening to Stephen from MKT the other day saying how hard it was to find a new, they've got an apprentice, they finally trained one but they couldn't find anyone to do it and and actually i think it would be wonderful to do that oh yeah all right well that's the call to arms thank you very much for sharing your insights with us beth thank you for having me pleasure thank you for listening to wardrobe crisis you can find the show notes for each episode over on our website the wardrobe crisis.com i hope you've enjoyed the show i'd love you to help us spread the word tell a friend share on social media or leave us a rating and review in apple podcasts it really helps new listeners find us on the app you can get in touch with us on social media the show is on instagram at the wardrobe crisis and i'm on there too i'm at mrs press