I was out with a couple of friends last night who supply hardware to many of the PVC fabricators in the UK.
We’d had a few to drink, and we got talking about the factories in China supplying the hardware that the vast majority of the double glazing industry in the UK are using. They were describing to me the quite appalling conditions Chinese workers have to endure, even in the better factories. It seems life over there is less valuable than in the UK, with an abundance of cheap labour and poor health and safety conditions.
Although I have never been it was implied that people are actually dying producing hardware for the PVCu window industry. Obviously, it’s not just factories producing for our consumption – the problem is widespread for many products manufactured for global consumption.
The problem is consumers mostly want the cheapest deal they can get, forcing fabricators to buy cheap products, and this includes fighting hard to buy window handles as cheap as possible. I have been as guilty as the next man and haven’t until last night understood that my tough negotiations with hardware suppliers, could have the knock on consequence of forcing people at the other side of the world into a kind of slavery.
I was also with a few guys from outside of our industry last night, and asked whether when purchasing a house full of windows would they consider paying another £50 or £100 to ensure that all the products that make up their windows had been produced in an ethical way. The result was a unanimous ‘No’.
Maybe, I’m looking at things too deeply, and I accept that I know very little about the working conditions in China. However, surely this is something we should all be concerned about.
And, my question is:
Is there room in the market place for a ‘Fair Trade Hardware’ range, which costs a little bit more than normal but ensures good working conditions for the staff in the Far East?
