George Miller: “Today all across America, consumers are taking a closer look at how products that they buy are made. There are some…”

“Today all across America, consumers are taking a closer look at how products that they buy are made. There are some things consumers have always wanted to know: How much does it cost? Where is it made? What is it made of? And was it made with union labor? Was it made with recycled products? For many years, there have been labels on these products to provide consumers this information. Today, however, on the heels of a number of embarrassing incidents involving high-profile personalities and well-known companies, consumers want to know more about the products they buy. They want to know under what conditions were these products made. They want to know, for example, whether the T-shirts, the baseball caps, the sweatpants, and the soccer balls they buy for themselves and for their children were made by children. They want to know if the products they are buying with their hard-earned money were made by workers who were exploited in sweatshops or by child labor. There are no labels to tell consumers that kind of information. Until there is a better way to inform consumers about labor practices, about the methods of production, we think that one of the best ways to do this is for purchasers of these items to engage in voluntary codes of conduct, codes of conduct that are backed up by independent monitoring.”