… expo CRL announced ;-)
De: Clean Clothes Campaign [mailto:info@cleanclothes.org]
Enviado el: lunes, 19 de febrero de 2024 17:10
Para: Federacíon Setem
Asunto: CCC Updates #4 - Solidarity with Sumithra Hasalaka factory workers & Victoria's Secret disruptive action
CCC Updates #4 2024
19th of February
Dear friends,
CCC Updates are sent out (bi-weekly) on Mondays. Please continue to send anything you would like to share with the network to ccc-updates@cleanclothes.org.
Would you like to access our social media materials to promote our campaigns? We invite you to see our social media toolkit master doc or the current campaigns space on insite.
If you have any highlights, news, top stories or updates that you'd like featured at the top of the CCC Updates for extra visibility, please send them to ccc-updates@cleanclothes.org.
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Highlights
The OECD Forum on Due Diligence in the Garment & Footwear Sector kicks off today and will last from 19 to 23 February, in a hybrid way. Registration is free, but you are required to participate through this link. Please check this table to see the sessions where people from the CCC network are speaking or organising. For an overview of the different sessions relevant to the network, you can look at this table in view of topics and speakers.
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Updates
D1: Freedom of Association and the Right to Bargain Collectively
- Workers at the Sumithra Hasalaka factory in Sri Lanka, who fought hard for their union in the past, were confronted with intimidation and violence when they wanted to discuss the factory's very low wage offer. In response to the obstruction faced, workers went on strike for higher wages and their right to organise and, since then, have faced more threats and obstruction. Please read and share our solidarity message and send your own message of solidarity with Sumithra Hasalaka workers to the parent union FTZ & GSEU ftzunionlanka@gmail.com and Christie: christie@cleanclothes.org.
- Two union organisers of the Akota Garment Worker Federation in Bangladesh were beaten and threatened last week. A solidarity statement to ask attention to the struggle of the workers at the Libas Textiles factory in Gazipur is underway and will be published this week on cleanclothes.org. Please keep an eye on the website or contact Christie: christie@cleanclothes.org for more information on the statement.
D2: Employment Relationship and Social Protection
- Activists in the Netherlands disrupted a store opening of Victoria's Secret on the country's busiest train station on 9 February in solidarity with the struggle of the Body Fashion workers in Thailand. Read more about their case here, and feel free to spread the action and more information about the case using the assets available here. The Pay Your Workers WIG is planning to organise more disruptive actions to support the cases the WIG is supporting. Contact Christie: christie@cleanclothes.org if you want to know more.
- The Pay Your Workers US coalition took action on Valentine's Day to urge adidas to finally sign the Pay Your Workers agreement. Find photos and videos to share here, and keep an eye on the CCC IO social media for a recap soon!
- Earlier this month, students and labour activists protested peacefully at a Nike store in Washington DC, calling on Nike and its supplier to pay $800,000 owed to Thai workers of the Hong Seng factory who made Nike's collegiate apparel. Shortly after entering the store, the protesters had their signs forcefully grabbed and destroyed, and Nike staff violently pushed the protesters out of the door. Workers who made Nike’s collegiate apparel faced retaliation and intimidation when they stood up against the factory management, who tricked them into signing a form falsely stating that they wanted to take voluntary unpaid leave. See footage of the protest.
D3: Living Wages
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D4: Worker Safety and Health
- The list of brands that have signed the International Accord and specific country programmes continues to grow. The International Accord is now signed by 165 brands. There are 108 signatories to the Pakistan Accord and 139 companies signed the Bangladesh programme. For regular updates check the International Accord website or our overview which also includes brands that have not signed.
D5: Just Transition
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D6: Legislation, Regulation and Binding Mechanisms for Corporate Accountability
- The CCC network has been pushing for an ambitious EU corporate human rights and environmental due diligence law for years. But Germany's FDP party is making a dramatic last stand against the law, jeopardising everything that’s been fought for and damaging Germany's reputation around the world. The platform Eko created this petition telling Chancellor Scholz that Germany must vote yes in favour of the due diligence directive. We encourage people across the whole network to sign and share this petition.
- On 5 February, MEPs on the European Parliament’s Employment Committee sent an official letter to European Parliament President Roberta Metsola, urging the withdrawal of lobbying badges from Amazon representatives, effectively barring them from the Parliament’s corridors. The coalition of over 30 trade unions and civil society groups is supporting the MEPs’ demand in the open letter (co-signed by Clean Clothes Campaign International Office), voicing deep concerns over Amazon’s dismissive attitude toward democratic scrutiny and trade unions, coupled with its substantial investments in lobbying efforts. The mounting pressure on Amazon is part of a broader campaign led by the Make Amazon Pay campaign, which mobilised strikes and protests across more than 30 countries on Black Friday 2023. Read the full open letter. Sourcing Journal (via Yahoo!Life) wrote this article about the letter.
- At the OECD Forum on Due Diligence in the Garment and Footwear Sector, Arisa and ISDN are organising the side session: Addressing caste in the garment and footwear supply chain – how to integrate caste in corporate due diligence procedures on 23 February, 9:00 am - 10:00 am (CET). Caste discrimination affects millions worldwide, pushing the most oppressed castes into forced labour and precarious work and creating serious obstacles to access to grievance mechanisms and equal treatment. Despite these serious risks, corporate due diligence procedures often overlook caste-related issues. In this session, with experts, they will explore what companies can do to identify and address caste-related human rights impacts in their South Asian garment and footwear supply chains. For more information, click here, and to register, click here.
D7: Building the Network Leverage and Power
- The European Confederation of NGOs working on Sustainable Development and International Cooperation (CONCORD) is organising a webinar: Who holds the lion's share? A closer look at Global Europe Funds for CSOs on 11 March, 13.00 - 14.00 CET. This webinar is undertaken as a study on EU development cooperation funding for CSOs at the country and regional level to inform, stimulate and support its discussions with relevant EU institutions and EU Member States. It will also contribute to discussions about CSO funding mechanisms and potential adaptations, especially with regard to geographic programming. The topic focus is Sub-Saharan Africa and Southeast Asia. If you are interested in attending, register on this link.
- The travelling exhibition "Tejiendo Conciencia: Breaking Patterns of the Textile Industry" will stop in the cities of Cordoba, Pamplona, Vitoria, Barcelona, and Madrid from March to June. Visitors are taken on a voyage of discovery to explore the threads that weave the fabric of the global garment industry through seven thematic modules accompanied by interactive materials and informative videos. From the environmental impact to labour exploitation in garment manufacturing, each panel and interactive activity invites visitors to reflect on the complex production and consumption chains underpinning the fashion industry. The exhibition explores how each stage significantly impacts the environment, working conditions and our consumption choices, from producing raw materials to manufacturing garments and their lifespan. This exhibition aims to inform about the garment industry's challenges and raise awareness of what lies behind fashion to empower visitors to become agents of change. In this way, it promotes a more ethical and sustainable textile industry, and that starts with becoming aware of our own purchasing decisions. For more information, click here (Spanish).
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Reading & Audiovisual Material
- Why fashion's 'recycling' is not saving the planet, article in Barron's
- A year after quake disaster, Syrians in Türkiye battle unemployment and exploitation, feature in The New Humanitarian
- Forced Labor in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region: Assessing the Continuation of Coercive Labor Transfers in 2023 and Early 2024, brief in The Jamestown Foundation
- Concerns remain despite adidas supplier remediating Cambodia workers, writes Just Style
- ‘I can’t even afford to eat any more’: Three migrant workers say there is little hope that the Year of the Dragon will bring prosperity in its train, interviews in Radio Free Asia
- Garment workers have lost out on $4bn of severance pay, says rights group, article in The Guardian
- Workers protest in Gazipur demanding salary, earned leave, article in Dhaka Tribune
- Nike to cut about 2% jobs to lower costs as demand weakens, writes Reuters
- Garment workers in Sri Lanka attacked by employer, article by IndustriALL
- Working conditions, the crux is real control of the supply chain, writes Breaking Latest News
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This is an internal newsletter of the CCC network. Its aim is to inform you of activities coming up and things going on in the network. The information in CCC Updates is internal and provisional and may be subject to change. This newsletter is additional to the quarterly newsletter Threads, which is the face of the CCC toward our network and our friends and allies. Subscribe to receive Threads.
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