News overview
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April 17, 2024
11 years since the Rana Plaza collapse factories are safer but the root causes of tragedy persist
24 April 2024 will mark the 11th anniversary of the fashion industry’s worst tragedy: the collapse of the Rana Plaza building, killing 1,138 people. The catastrophic death and injury toll was caused by a deadly mix of fashion brands ignoring dangerous factory conditions, poverty wages, and centrally, constraints on workers’ ability to organise collectively. While unprecedented progress has been made to make factories safer, the brutal crackdown on workers’ rights still unfolding in response to protests to increase the minimum wage has shown that apparel brands producing in Bangladesh are still failing to ensure that the basic rights of their workers are respected.
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April 10, 2024
Sri Lankan workers continue two-months long strike for decent wages, while brands fail to take sufficient action
On 10 February 2024, workers of the Sumithra Hasalaka factory in Sri Lanka organised by the Free Trade Zones & General Services Employees Union (FTZ & GSEU) startedstriking for a wage offer that meets their cost of living. Two months on, these brave workers’ strike continues in the face of harassment and intimidation, financial hardship, and during the most important family holiday of the year, the Sinhala and Tamil new year. International brands sourcing from the factory group have taken insufficient action to ensure their suppliertreatsworkers better.
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April 2, 2024
Levi’s breaks promise to workers in union busting struggle at Turkish garment factory
Workers at a Levi’s supplier in Türkiyehave faced harassment, attacks, arrests, and dismissal for exercising their right to chose their own union representation. Despite committing to the union that it would pressure the factory management to rehire unlawfully terminated union members, four months since the start of the conflict, Levi’s is still producing clothes at the factory and has stopped communicating with the union and labour rights advocates supporting them.
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March 19, 2024
Industry statements about Bangladesh crackdown belie fashion brands’ abject failure to protect their garment workers
In the wake of the fundamentally flawed Bangladesh minimum wage protest of 2023 that led to the setting of another poverty wage, the government of Bangladesh cracked down hard on workers’ protests. Criminal charges, often filed by suppliers to major international brands, are now hanging over the heads of tens of thousands of workers. Yet, through recent industry statements, brands attempt to wash their hands of the responsibility for both the setting of yet another wage that leaves workers unable to put enough food on the table and of the legal threats now facing them.
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March 19, 2024
Cycling giant Specialized remains stationary in wage theft case
The Clean Clothes Campaign is disappointed to learn that Salvadoran workers, producing apparel for Specialized, are still owed US$659,000 in unpaid wages and severance – a year and a half after losing their jobs, leaving them struggling to make ends meet.
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March 7, 2024
Factory workers of Serbian socks supplier Valy triumph over unauthorised overtime practices
98 trade union members received the overtime payment from Serbian socks supplier Valy that was withheld over the preceding 2.5 years.
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February 28, 2024
Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence: Member States chose to protect corporate profits and fail workers and human rights
Today the Council of the European Union struck a blow to corporate accountability and workers’ rights in the garment and footwear industry by failing to endorse a deal it had made with the European Parliament and the Commission on landmark legislation to protect human rights and the environment from corporate abuse.
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February 28, 2024
Bleaching chemicals used on jeans have devastating effects on workers and environment
A new report published today by Clean Clothes Campaign Turkey reveals the harmful effects of potassium permanganate (PP) bleaching of jeans on worker health and the environment. The report, which covers 44 brands, focuses on the impact of PP chemical use on worker health and environmental pollution in the Ergene Basin, which is now unsuitable for agricultural purposes.
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February 26, 2024
Victory for newly unionised garment workers in Nike factory, Sri Lanka
After months of struggle and uncertainty, 18 workers of a Nike sock factory in Sri Lanka, who were suspended for forming a branch union, are now back at their jobs with the branch union in place. This victory shows that union busting has no place in garment supply chains and that workers standing together and international solidarity can make a real difference.
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February 21, 2024
Union activists in Bangladesh beaten and threatened for exercising their right to organise
Last week, on 15 February 2024, union organisers and activists of the Akota Garment Worker Federation (AGWF) in Bangladesh were beaten, threatened, and subsequently hospitalised. The attack followed an attempt by workers of the Libas Textiles factory in Gazipur, to establish a factory union that would join the AGWF.
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February 16, 2024
Solidarity with striking garment workers at Sumithra Hasalaka, Sri Lanka!
Around 300 members of the Free Trade Zones & General Services Employees Union (FTZ & GSEU) at the Sumithra Hasalaka factory in Sri Lanka, have been out on strike since Saturday 10th February 2024.
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February 1, 2024
In solidarity with the Myanmar workers' movement: 3rd anniversary of the military junta’s attempted coup
Clean Clothes Campaign (CCC) stands in solidarity with all those working to end military rule in Myanmar and fully supports the call to restore democracy and to respect and uphold human rights.
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January 4, 2024
Factories and brands disregarded workers’ rights in the wake of Türkiye’s 2023 earthquake
Interviews with 100+ workers shows that garment factories and their buyers left workers to fend for themselves after the devastating earthquake that hit Türkiye in February 2023. As most of them were not paid in full in the aftermath of the earthquake, workers had to return to their jobs out of financial necessity without having a safe place to live and before the factories they worked in had undergone any structural safety inspections.
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December 14, 2023
Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence: EU legislators reach landmark political agreement but more is needed to guarantee workers’ rights
Early this morning, the European Parliament and the Council of the European Union (EU) reached an agreement on the Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive (CSDDD).
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December 11, 2023
Brands commit to new six year safety programme to keep garment workers safe
47 brands have thus far signed the new legally binding and enforceable safety programme for the garment sector announced in November. By signing, brands commit to ensuring that factories are made safe in their supply chain in at least one of the countries covered by the programme. Unions and labour rights organisations in the Clean Clothes Campaign network call on all garment brands that have not yet done so to take this opportunity to sign this new agreement that builds on a model that has proven itself as the highest standard in the industry over the past decade.
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November 24, 2023
Statement on the 11th Tazreen Fashions fire anniversary
Eleven years have passed since the Tazreen Fashions factory fire on 24 November 2012. On this day we remember and pledge not to forget about the negligence that let to this preventable disaster. We will continue to advocate for safer workplaces throughout garment supply chains, as well as for legally enshrined financial compensation for all injured and killed workers in garment factories Bangladesh.
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