Introduction: A column by Nicholas Kristof, of the New York Times questions whether fair trade does more harm than good. Kristof doesn’t like sweatshops, but he puts for the perspective that creating more jobs would better serve the poor people in the developing world than higher paying, fair trade jobs. This resulted in an email

~By Marc Choyt, Publisher For the last few years, Ethical Metalsmiths has been in the forefront for the support of ethical jewelry studio practices. They have been involved in a number of projects, including the Radical Jewelry Makeover, which has recently gone international. One of their latest projects is to develop a manual for studio

This is an ongoing documentation of a series of dialogs between members of our Manufacturing Group, charged with the task of developing exceptional standards for jewelry manufacturing. Follow this link, https://fairjewelry.org/madison-dialogue-manufacturing-committee for full review of past discussions, including two posts on transparency: https://fairjewelry.org/archives/3976 and https://fairjewelry.org/archives/3974 The entire principles and standards document can be in our