Assessing the self-regulation strategies and reflexive capacity of fashion companies’ anti-slavery tools

The Australian Modern Slavery Act 2018 (Cth) is a disclosure regulation that seeks to encourage corporate self-reflection and subsequent self-regulation on the issue of modern slavery. However, fashion companies have an established history of self-regulating on labour exploitation, and critics argue that company actions often fail to acknowledge power asymmetries between themselves and their suppliers, or how business practices might foster labour exploitation. These criticisms generate doubt on whether fashion companies will reflexively respond to the Act. This paper evaluates how fashion companies are self-regulating against modern slavery, informed by reflexive and smart regulation theory, and draws on an analysis of 57 fashion companies’ modern slavery statements to create a first-of-its-kind comprehensive typology of anti-slavery tools. We examine how fashion companies are self-regulating according to the actors involved, the coercive and persuasive pressures used, and the reflexive capacity of the tool. We find that fashion companies predominately use coercive and non-reflexive tactics to regulate their suppliers and use weak persuasive and partially reflexive tactics to regulate themselves. Our findings demonstrate that regulatory reform is needed, and fashion companies need to improve their anti-slavery strategies by reflecting on their own capacity to support suppliers and further scrutinise their own practices

Business · Political science · Power (physics · Public relations · Reflexivity · Social science · Sociology · Typology · Fashion and Cultural Textiles · Global trade, sustainability, and social impact · Sex work and related issues · Marketing