Wolfgang Uchatius asks in this week’s DIE ZEIT, how an H&M T-Shirt can cost only 4,95 Euro (the exact same price as 10 years ago). In his long and well-researched article he follows the path of an H&M T-Shirt – a little bit like Rivoli’s “Travels of a T-Shirt”, but only on 3 pages. Uchatius discovers at least 7 secrets of the cheap H&M T-Shirt:
1. Cheap cotton: In the past years, the 400 g of cotton that you need for one T-Shirt cost around 0,40 Euro. US cotton is cheap, because the cotton stripping machines yield as much cotton a day as 300 workers, and because US-American taxpayers subsidize it by 40 Cents a shirt. Hence, machines and US taxpayers make our H&M T-Shirt cheap. However, Uchatius explains that the cotton price has been rising to 1 Euro for 400 g, because there is too little cotton in the world market at the moment.
2. Indecent working conditions: The ability of the workers in Bangladesh to hold back their need to go to the toilet during working hours (he explains the living and working conditions of workers in Bangladesh in some detail). Garment workes in Bangladesh drink little during working hours (in factories that are around 30-40 degrees hot!), because otherwise they need to go to toilet and then they do not manage the strict targets set by the factory management to achieve the low prices H&M pays (....more)
1. Cheap cotton: In the past years, the 400 g of cotton that you need for one T-Shirt cost around 0,40 Euro. US cotton is cheap, because the cotton stripping machines yield as much cotton a day as 300 workers, and because US-American taxpayers subsidize it by 40 Cents a shirt. Hence, machines and US taxpayers make our H&M T-Shirt cheap. However, Uchatius explains that the cotton price has been rising to 1 Euro for 400 g, because there is too little cotton in the world market at the moment.
2. Indecent working conditions: The ability of the workers in Bangladesh to hold back their need to go to the toilet during working hours (he explains the living and working conditions of workers in Bangladesh in some detail). Garment workes in Bangladesh drink little during working hours (in factories that are around 30-40 degrees hot!), because otherwise they need to go to toilet and then they do not manage the strict targets set by the factory management to achieve the low prices H&M pays (....more)
