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2019

Adopting a Gender-Sensitive approach to Living Wages is imperative to Women Worker’s Rights.

Current living wage calculation methodologies risk setting a living wage too low, cementing the position of women workers, in which they face multiple poverty related - gender specific burdens.

Surge in Garment Industry Transparency

Laws Needed to Ensure Companies Adopt Human Rights Practices -- Clothing and footwear brands and retailers have dramatically increased their disclosure of information about their supply chains in the past three years, a coalition of unions, human rights groups, and labour rights advocates said in a joint report released today. In 2016, the coalition created the Transparency Pledge, a minimum standard of supply chain transparency that enables advocates, workers, and consumers to find out where a brand’s products are made.

Fatal Indian factory fire sheds light on pervasive workplace violations

Yesterday, over 40 people died in a factory fire in Delhi, India. The manifestly unsafe factory highlights the urgent need for enforcement of fire and building safety regulations and credible safety monitoring in India. While initial compensation measures have already been announced, more is needed to ensure adequate fair and full compensation to the affected workers and their families.

100 civil society organisations call for EU law to address environmental and human rights abuses in corporate supply chains

Ahead of the Finnish EU Presidency’s business and human rights event today, over 100 civil society organisations and trade unions have now signed a letter calling on the European Union to develop effective legislation, that would oblige companies and financial institutions to address the human rights and environmental impact of their global operations and supply chains.

I made clothes for Uniqlo but I didn’t get paid

I am Warni Lena from Indonesia. I made clothes for Uniqlo but I didn’t get paid. While you shop clothes at a bargain for the holiday season, there’ s a story I think you want to hear.

Seven years after fatal fire, Bangladesh still provides no financial security to garment workers injured on the job

Seven years since at least 112 workers were killed and many more injured in a fire in the Tazreen Fashions factory in Bangladesh, there is still no system in place offering financial security to workers injured at the workplace and families of workers killed on the job. If a worker loses their health or life on the job, they or their families will face the same insecurity and struggle for compensation as the Tazreen families did seven years ago. Years of planning to create a nation-wide employment injury insurance scheme have still not led to tangible results.

Amazon takes transparency step

Amazon took a useful first step toward transparency on 15 November 2019 by publicly disclosing on its website the names, addresses, and other details of over 1,000 facilities that produce Amazon-branded products, a broad coalition of human rights groups, labour rights organizations, and global unions said today. But the list is not easily accessible, sortable, or sufficiently specific to learn the type of products made in each of the listed facilities, limiting its value for consumers, workers, and labour advocates.

How Inditex usurps the word ‘Respect’

The fashion giant Inditex, which owns the brand Zara, presents itself as a transparent company that attaches the utmost importance to the people who produce its clothes. Exclusive investigation into the conditions in which one of its iconic hoodies was produced reveals what goes on behind the scenes: meagre wages, excessive hours, precarious contracts. The workers pay the price for the huge pressure to drive down prices that Inditex exerts on its suppliers in order to boost its handsome profits.

Indonesian workers file FLA complaint against Uniqlo and S.Oliver

After years in which Uniqlo refused to engage in a serious mediation process, Clean Clothes Campaign (CCC) together with the workers of the Indonesian Jaba Garmindo factory group filed a complaint with the Fair Labor Association (FLA). The complaint is directed against Fast Retailing, parent company of the Uniqlo brand, and German brand s. Oliver for violating FLA’s Workplace Code of Conduct and its “Principles of Fair Labor and Responsible sourcing”, designed to ensure the “respectful and ethical treatment of workers” and to “promote sustainable conditions” in the garment industry.

Civil call for human rights and environmental due diligence legislation

Over 80 NGOs and trade unions have called on the European Commission to bring forth this term new corporate accountability legislation requiring companies to respect human rights and the environment in their global value chains and operations. The signatories urge that victims of corporate violations should have their access to judicial remedy enhanced by the new legislation.

“We go as far as brands want us to go”

A new report launched today exposes multi-billion social auditing industry operating as corporate social responsibility (CSR) tool to protect brand reputation and profits while aggravating risks to garment workers. The report “Fig Leaf for Fashion: How social auditing protects brands and fails workers” published today by Clean Clothes Campaign offers an extensive analysis of the corporate controlled audit industry, connecting the dots between the most well known business-driven social compliance initiatives, such as Social Accountability International, WRAP, the FLA, and amfori BSCI, and the largest corporate-controlled auditing firms, including Bureau Veritas, TÜV Rheinland, UL, RINA, and ELEVATE, as well as the brand interests that they serve.

Seven years after deadly fire, garment workers in Pakistan still need a worker-led factory safety programme

Seven years since the Ali Enterprises factory fire of 2012, in which over 250 workers were killed, textile and garment factories in Pakistan remain as unsafe as they were then, warns a report launched today.

G7 Fashion Deal can only be meaningful if it aligns with UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights

This weekend, a coalition of 32 large apparel companies launched a G7 Fashion deal for sustainably produced textiles, pledging to protect the environment.

New safety initiative launched in India today ignores vital lessons from the past

A building safety initiative launching in India today, aimed at improving safety for workers in the country’s garment industry, is set on a path to ignore workers’ voices and replicate mistakes from the past. Although the “Life and Building Safety Initiative” professes to learn from the programme that made factories safe in Bangladesh after the Rana Plaza building collapse, it ignores its most vital elements.

Faded denim look comes at a steep price

Clean Clothes Campaign Turkey investigated the Turkish denim industry's use of Potassium Permanganate. Research revealed that workers use it in spray form to create the faded look in denim. The workers reported suffering skin and respiratory problems.

The Bangladesh Accord continues to operate but its independence may be at risk

As witness signatories to the Accord on Fire and Building Safety in Bangladesh, we are concerned about the potential negative impact on worker safety, both short-term and long-term, of the recently concluded Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) between the Accord and the Bangladesh Garment Manufacturers and Exporters Association (BGMEA) and the diverging interpretations that have emerged over the last few weeks.

Major brands are failing on living wage commitments

Our latest report reveals that no major clothing brand is able to show that workers making their clothing in Asia, Africa, Central America or Eastern Europe are paid enough to escape the poverty trap. That means that apparel brands and retailers are violating internationally recognized human right norms, and their own Codes of Conduct.

Questions raised after agreement reached on Bangladesh Accord

On 19 May 2019, the Appellate Division of the Bangladesh Supreme Court accepted a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) reached earlier this month between the Bangladesh Accord Steering Committee and the Bangladesh employers’ association in the ready-made-garment sector, BGMEA.

Western European brands are profiting from poverty wages in Romania: Europe’s biggest fashion manufacturer.

Garment workers in Romanian earn a mere 14 percent of a living wage. Therefore their family members have to search for precarious jobs in Western Europe.

Safety program established six years ago in Bangladesh has saved lives and stopped retaliation across hundreds of factories

An independent mechanism allowing garment workers to directly raise safety issues is making factories safer and empowering workers to advocate for their own safety, according to a report published today by the International Labor Rights Forum.

Amidst Wave of Deadly Fires, Bangladesh Government Threatens to Expel the Only Credible Building Safety Programme in the Country and Further Suppress Workers’ Rights

On the sixth anniversary of the Rana Plaza building collapse, labour rights groups are calling on the government of Bangladesh to cease attempts to expel the Accord on Fire and Building Safety from Bangladesh and to urgently increase safety efforts for the buildings currently under the government’s oversight, which include tens of thousands of factories across all industries.

Not a single worker is making a living wage yet H&M claims to have done an amazing job

In the latest sustainability report and the accompanying public communication H&M continues to mislead the public about its progress in the area of living wage.

Former Uniqlo garment workers attend flagship store opening in Denmark to highlight Uniqlo’s wage-theft

Between 2 and 7 April, two Indonesian garment factory workers, who made Uniqlo clothing for years, will be in Copenhagen as part of the global PayUp Uniqlo campaign.

Government of Bangladesh not ready to take over Accord’s safety work

The government of Bangladesh is using proceedings before the Supreme Court of Bangladesh to prevent the Accord on Fire and Building Safety, the safety programme established in the aftermath ofthe Rana Plaza collapse, from operating, thereby putting workers’ safety at risk.

NGOs welcome MEP initiative on responsible business conduct

A coalition of ActionAid, Amnesty International, Anti-Slavery International, Clean Clothes Campaign, the European Coalition for Corporate Justice and FIDH (International Federation for Human Rights) hope this will lead the European Commission to follow suit and take immediate steps to develop an action plan.

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