How do employee conditions affect PR efforts?

A recent campaign seeks to make consumers aware of factory workers’ situations while several brands are looking to boost reputations with wage increases.

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The label reads:

100% cotton. Made in Cambodia by Behnly, nine years old. He gets up at 5 a.m. every morning to make his way to the garment factory where he works. It will be dark when he arrives and dark when he leaves. He dresses lightly because the temperature in the room he works reaches 30 degrees. The dust in the room fills his nose and mouth. He will make less than a dollar, for a day spent slowly suffocating. A mask would cost the company ten cents. The label doesn’t tell the whole story.

That 30 degrees is centigrade, equal to 86 degrees Fahrenheit.

Additional posters from the group’s campaign, which include a sweatshirt and suit jacket, can be seen at Adweek’s website.

According to The Huffington Post, H&M, along with other European retailers, recently pledged to increase factory workers’ wages after pressure from consumers and advocacy groups such as Clean Clothes.

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