While meeting brands representatives, we are often asked a recurrent question, especially when we talk with quality managers. Why don’t you apply the same method to improve working conditions than the one we use to improve quality?

It makes sense to work directly with the factory by giving advice as it is often done to improve/manage the quality level of the goods. [We stress here the difference with the “request of result only” approach, which we don’t talk about here]. However, we have found that almost never works, and only if the ties between the factory and the brand are very strong.

It seems important to figure out the reason to find the best improvement approaches. We tried to understand what were the key differences between social topics and quality of the goods. The first obvious difference is that a brand buys a good while it buys to a factory. As a consumer, we know we can ask for a coffee more or less sweet, but not for the bartender to change its working time. Why should it be considered as normal in a brand/factory relationship?