Activists disrupt Zara’s European distribution centre on the first day of COP29, chanting “No climate justice without garment workers’ rights!”

The disruption of the brands’ European distribution centre is an escalation of CCC’s ongoing campaign targeting brands linked to the crackdown on Bangladeshi workers after the 2023 minimum wage protests [1]. Inditex is one of the top offenders on CCC’s tracker linking brands with factories that pressed trumped-up criminal charges against workers.

According to CCC’s research, at least 5500 workers in Inditex’s supply chain remain at risk of prison sentences and arrests due to largely baseless legal charges filed by factory owners after the 2023 national minimum wage revision protests [2]. At least eight of Inditex’s supplier factories took part in worker repression. 

Bangladesh is among the countries most vulnerable to climate change and is one of the biggest garment manufacturers in the world [3]. CCC argues that the massive contribution of the fashion industry to global CO2 emissions would not be taking place without the extreme impoverishment and repression of Bangladeshi garment workers.

Kalpona Akter, president of the Bangladesh Garment & Industrial Workers Federation, said: 

“Bangladeshi garment workers are already at the frontline of the climate crisis. But as global leaders discuss our future in Baku, we do not have the privilege to look beyond the present. The Bangladeshi labour movement is frozen by the vicious cycle of repression enabled by major fashion brands like Zara whose commitments to living wages and freedom of association are clearly nothing but empty promises.”

Bogu Gojdz, a campaigner for the Clean Clothes Campaign said: “We can no longer ignore the rights of garment workers in our fight for climate justice. It is not a coincidence that the biggest fashion polluters are also the top violators of labour rights. Inditex must end the exploitation and repression of workers in its supply chain.” 

Activists demand that Zara presses its suppliers to drop all charges and publicly supports the unions’ request to the interim Government of Bangladesh to issue an executive order to have all the politically motivated legal charges being brought against workers for participation in the wage protests in 2023 dropped at once [4].

1. Background: https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2023/nov/15/bangladesh-garment-workers-fighting-for-pay-face-brutal-violence-and-threats and https://www.thedailystar.net/news/bangladesh/crime-justice/news/rmg-workers-life-after-protests-plagued-uncertainty-3490356
2. Campaign page and brand tracker: https://cleanclothes.org/campaigns/crackdown-2024

3. Climate vulnerability index: https://www.undp.org/bangladesh/publications/climate-vulnerability-index-draft

4. Union demands: https://www.tbsnews.net/economy/industry/18-demands-workers-be-met-all-factories-be-open-tomorrow-secretary-949451