News overview
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February 17, 2020
Deadly Indian factory fire again shows need for preventive safety measures and justice for workers
A fire in the two-story Nandan Denim factory in the Indian city of Ahmedabad a week ago on Saturday night killed at least seven workers. According to media reports, the high death toll was caused by severe safety defects in the factory. This fire thereby painfully shows the need for concerted preventive safety measures throughout India’s garment industry.
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February 10, 2020
UK garment brand River Island signs on to the Transparency Pledge
The first out of five brands targeted in a new campaign push led by Clean Clothes Campaign and Human Rights Watch to publish their supplier list has signed the Transparency Pledge last week. UK garment brand River Island is committing to disclose their supply chain information according to the minimum standards laid down in the Transparency Pledge by end of March 2020. It is now time for the other four targets of the campaign, American Eagle Outfitter, Armani, Carrefour and Urban Outfitters, to take the same step.
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February 5, 2020
Reality check for the Bangladesh garment industry: what needs to be addressed?
Employers, multi-stakeholder initiatives, and academics will be discussing the Bangladesh apparel industry in the European Parliament today. All stakeholders in the industry will have a chance to speak, except for the workers who form the backbone of the industry. Requests to have a worker representative as one of the speakers on today’s panel have been turned down. Clean Clothes Campaign believes a reality check on the situation of the garment industry in Bangladesh is direly needed, and would like to highlight issues that might be left out in absence of worker voices.
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January 13, 2020
A year after crackdown on wage protests in Bangladesh, hundreds of workers still face retaliatory charges
A year ago, tens of thousands of workers in Bangladesh went on strike against the poverty wages that are pervasive in the country’s export-oriented garment industry. On 13 January 2019, a minimal wage revision was announced that, together with massive repression, led workers to end the demonstrations that had been going on since December. Thousands of workers were unable to go back to work, however, facing punishment for their peaceful protest through politically-motivated dismissals, blacklisting, and criminal charges. Public pressure has in the past weeks and months led to withdrawal of at least eight criminal cases. Nevertheless, one year on, hundreds of workers continue to face the threat of serving time in prison for trumped-up and retaliatory charges.
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January 9, 2020
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.
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December 18, 2019
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.
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December 9, 2019
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.
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December 2, 2019
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.
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November 27, 2019
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.
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November 22, 2019
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.
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November 20, 2019
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.
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November 20, 2019
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.
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October 17, 2019
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.
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October 3, 2019
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.
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September 17, 2019
“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.
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September 11, 2019
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.
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