Background to Red
Red partners with companies to use its brand, rather than manufacturing garments or other products itself. Red partner companies, such as Gap, manufacture Red branded merchandise and donate up to 50% of the profits from the sales of Red branded merchandise to the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria to fund HIV and AIDS work in Africa(1).

Red is not a certification scheme. It does states that is asks its partners to uphold its Guiding Principles(2), one of which states 'Red respects its employees and asks its partners to do the same with their employees and the people who help make their products or deliver their services'. Neither Red nor its PR company were able to expand on what this might mean in practice or how this is monitored, other than to issue the vague statement, that "(RED) works through a process of consultation and guidance with its associate partners to support the partner organizations in following the Guiding Principles set out by (RED)".

Converse Red & Armani Red
It was not possible to find any information on-line about working conditions in Armani or Converse Red products and both companies failed to respond to requests for information.

Gap Red

Company / Ownership: Gap Red is a brand of Gap Inc.

Website: http://www.gapinc.com/red/
Email address: custserv@gap.com

Gap donate 50% of its profits from the sales of Gap Red branded merchandise towards the Global Fund's work with African women and children affected by HIV and AIDS. Gap began selling Red merchandise in October 2006 and made a commitment to the initiative for five years.

Share ownership: Gap Inc is a for-profit company owned by shareholders. Its revenue in 2007 was $15.8 billion(3).

Markets: Gap Red merchandise is sold online and in the UK, Canada, France, Ireland, France, Japan, US, Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, Turkey, Dubai and Korea(4).

Activities: Gap Inc. manufactures and retails Red men's, women's and children's clothing and accessories.

Producers:Gap RED garments are produced in the same production facilities as other Gap Inc. products. Gap RED T-shirts are 100% African made and are produced in Lesotho and South Africa(5). Whilst Gap gives preference to manufacturers in Africa for its other Red range, some products are sourced outside of Africa. Information about which suppliers or countries Gap are sourcing Red merchandise is not available. Some suppliers may have a long-term relationship with Gap Inc, but this is not a criteria for Gap Red production(6).

Standards: Gap Inc applies the same workers' rights standards to all their suppliers, including those producing Red merchandise(7). The standards are based on internationally accepted labour standards and covers adherence to local labour laws, discrimination, forced labour, child labour, wages and working hours, health and safety and freedom of association(8).

Monitoring and verification: Gap applies the same monitoring system across its supply chain, including Gap Red(9). The Gap monitoring system requires all new factories to go through an approval process. The company aims to carry out announced or unannounced inspections in each factory once every twelve months: 99.4% of garment factories were inspected in 2006(10). If violations of their code of conduct are found, then they continue to place orders at the factory if a commitment is shown to making improvements(11).

Gap recognise that their business practices can impact on working conditions such as changes to orders after production has begun(12).

Reporting: Gap does not publish information about workers' rights in specific factories , nor does it produce a report about workers' rights specifically involved in the manufacture of Gap Red merchandise. It does publish general data taken from across its supply chain relating to compliance of production facilities with its code of conduct(13).

Comments and questions: The Clean Clothes Campaign is primarily concerned with workers' rights in garment manufacture, rather than the benefits of the HIV and AIDS related activities that Gap is involved with. Therefore, this profile does not attempt to analyse the impact of this HIV and AIDS work.

Criticism has been aimed at Gap for wanting to be seen to be charitable whilst it still has violations of workers' rights in its supply chains(14).

Gap's commitment to sourcing its Gap Red t-shirts from African countries where workers are vulnerable to re-location of production to other garment producing countries since quotas were ended in 2005 is commendable(15).

From the information available, Gap do not make a long-term commitment to sourcing from a particular Gap Red supplier, which would enable suppliers to plan in the long-term and therefore potentially give workers more job security. In reality, many Gap Red suppliers are long-term suppliers(16), however, this appears to be a by-product of their relationship with these suppliers rather than an explicit long-term commitment.

A weakness in Gap's approach is the absence of a list of factories producing for Gap Red and information about the volume / percentage of production taking place in these factories. Inspection reports are also unavailable and there is no information about the presence of trade unions in Gap Red production facilities.

The Clean Up Fashion(17) review of Gap's activities, written by the UK platform of the Clean Clothes Campaign, shows that while Gap remains one of the most progressive fashion brands when it comes to labour rights, Gap has a long way to go to ensure that workers have their rights guaranteed. Workers' rights violations, for example in relation to wages or freedom for workers to join trade unions, continue to be found in Gap's supply chain(18). As the same systems and standards are applied to Gap Red production facilities, we have no reason to believe that similar problems will not be found in the factories producing for Gap Red.