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Buy visiting and having contact with our factories and sourcing agents around the world we often find that there are cheaper alternatives to many of our imported products but we most often pay more than we could due to only seeking products that are produced in a healthy and well organised workplace. Over the years we have been importing products to Australia we have found that the same companies that we use that are fair trades also have a better standard of product, its the same old saying "you get what you pay for".
Fair Trade promotes the practice of fair pricing and ethical consumer consumption through international labor standards, environmentalism, education, and the development of social policies around labeled and unlabeled Fair Trade products.
A small example of fair trade and in the real world happened to our company just days ago, being 08/10/2009, the background was a job for a giant inflatable balloon, the job had a tight time frame to fit the customer needs, after discussion with our factory in china about the turnaround times being held back due to china new year holidays, i asked if they could possible rush just this balloon through and push back other jobs we has that weren't as stress for time, but the answer from the boss was that if we pay triple time then the boys on the factory floor then they would do the job. I remember a long time ago in Australia were triple time was normal but no longer, sometimes i think that our own country should run with Fair trade and get up the the standards of our factories in China.
Until independent certification is available for other products such as gifts, promotional products and certain types of clothing, we feel that it is important to support those suppliers, manufacturers and communities who demonstrate their support for fair trade principles, and who are trying to benefit the communities in which they work and trade. We would class these individuals and companies as promoters of fair trade or purveyors of fairly traded goods. WPP has source and will only use companies overseas that not only fairly trade but also provide safe workplaces with good standards of pay and many of the conditions that we in Australia are used to.
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