Country reports of the European CCCs, January-June 2001

• Germany
• Spain
• Portugal
• Sweden
• Belgium, Flemish speaking part/French speaking part
• Bulgaria
• Austria
• UK
• The Netherlands
• Switzerland
• France

Companies:

1. adidas negotiations
Adidas-Salomon broke off negotiations with CCC because according to adidas the proposed monitoring organisation, GMIES, is not independent enough. Adidas decided in April 2001 that they want to work with the Fair Labour Association (FLA). CCC Germany said in a letter to David Husselbee and in press statement in May 2001 that they find the reason for cancellation not convincing. CCC Germany commented on the FLA code that the code is seriously flawed in terms of the range/reach of their standards and the proposed monitoring procedures.

2. Karstadt/Quelle
On March 8 2001, a CCC campaign on Karstadt/Quelle was launched. Karstadt/Quelle is the biggest department store chain in Europe and is ranked sixth worldwide, and includes the following companies: Hertie, Neckermann, Hess Natur, Runners Point and Wertheim. Karstady/Quelle operates in Germany, Switzerland and Austria. The German CCC wants Karstadt/Quelle to broaden its social and environmental commitments, embrace CCC's Code of Conduct and accept independent monitoring. Research into suppliers for Karstadt/Quelle in Indonesia has shown among others that workers were forced to do overtime and had to work up to 82 hours a week.

3. Puma
The CCC in Germany and Puma had two meetings and an exchange of letters.

Other news:

• 2 youth organisations have joined the CCC: the Protestant Youth Federation (Arbeitsgemeinschaft der Evangelischen Jugend AEJ) and the Federation of German Catholic Youth Organisations (Bund der Katholischen Jugend BDJK).
• Sportswear campaign: a major "Sports Congress" is planned just before the Football World Cup in Japan and Korea in June 2001. This congress will gather German sports celebrities, students, youth and sports organisations and sportswear companies to draw attention to the situation of the workers in the sportswear industry and to the shortcomings of the code of conduct of the WFSGI.
• CCC is actively involved in a series of roundtable discussions that serve as a follow-up to the "European initiative for Ethical Production and Consumption" conference that took place in June 2000 in Bonn. The roundtable discussions consists of dialogue between representatives from industry, trade unions, governments and NGOs. These roundtables aim to analyse and develop options for monitoring and independent verification of Codes of Conduct. So far, documents on aims and objectives are adopted and experiences from existing codes are compared (ETI, FLA, SAI, WRC and CCC). The next meeting is in July 2001
• Urgent appeals: The German CCC plans to have more work done on urgent appeals. Since March 2001 an urgent appeal section has been added to the website (http://www.sauberkleidung.de), where information about current cases can be found and protest letters can be downloaded.

Spanish CCC: Ropa Limpia

New materials:

• Spanish newsletter (nr.13)
• report: "Social certification: A tool for improving working conditions in the garment sector ?". Spain made a leaflet in the 4 languages of Spain about this report
• campana Ropa Limpia T-shirt
• video about social responsibility
• brochure "Emails to Filo"(will soon come out)
• sheet about social certification (will soon come out)

Activities:

• 7.000 postcards have been sent to the 5 biggest Spanish retailers: Adolfo, Dominguez, Burberry, Cortefiel group (Cortefiel, Springfield, Women's secret), Mango and Inditex group (Zara, Massimo Dutti, Pull&Bear, Berskha and Stradivarius). So far, 2 companies have not answered to the postcards, but they are expected to do so soon. Inditex has created a social responsibility department, and have hired PriceWaterhouseCoopers.
• After the summer: presentation of the results of "Made in Human Rights".
• There is a plan to have a "chatting to Filo" session on the internet.

The CCC from Portugal was unable to come to the meeting. The Spanish CCC tells shortly about their plans for the future:

• a forum in Lisboa to present CCC,
• activities around the European Championship Footbal in 2004, which are going to be held in Portugal

The Swedish Clean Clothes Campaign has had some difficulties during the last months, and has not been functioning very well. There is now a new person in the office, Anneli Persson, who will be the contact person for the Swedish campaign. They would like to involve organisations more actively in the campaign.

9000 postcards have been send out to sportswear companies. An action day in the middle of Stockholm, which consists of a fashion show with sportclothes, football games, a speech by Thailand labour campaign took place in February 2001. This action day was in the newspapers.

Sports activities

• Media action (May 11th): With Sumarno, president of Garteks Indonesia and an actress from a daily TV soap we went into a shop to buy sportswear. Campaigners addressed people in the street who were shopping. We had good regional press coverage.
• Sports day (May 20th) in Leuven: volleyball tournament, individual sportactivities, street run. There were 150 participants (men and women). Also politicians participated among which Dirk Vander Maelen, the politician behind the law proposal for a Belgian social label.

Costumer card

A costumer card was developed, which can be handed in by the consumers in the shops where they buy clothes and sportswear. The card has got 3 parts: one for the consumer, one for the shop, and one for the CCC. The action will last until the sales in January 2002.

Urgent appeals

A volunteer is now working on the solidarity appeals. This is really a step forward in that more and continuous work can be done.

• Triumph: The appeal was distributed by several organisations, also organisations that normally are not very active. One article was written in the newspaper; a journalist called the CCC after he'd read about Triumph in a French language newspaper.
• Panarub: Two organisations distributed the solidarity appeal.

Companies

- Carrefour:
A meeting was held between Schone Kleren Campagne, Campagne Vêtements Propres and Ethique sur L'Etiquette to exchange information and discuss strategies.
After the meeting a letter was sent to Carrefour Belgium to ask for a clear commitment. To pressure Carrefour Belgium an action is meant to take place in French speaking and Dutch speaking Belgium on June 9th

- Adidas
With campaigners from different member organisations of the CCC a meeting was held with David Husselbee and Frank Henke in Brussels where Adidas'Code of Conduct; the non appearance of adidas at the European Parliament, the negotiations with the German CCC and the situation in Indonesia was discussed. In this meeting David Husselbee promised to send a report of the meeting they would have later with Indonesian adidas' suppliers. This report was sent by the CCC to Garteks to see which of the recommendations are being put into practice.

Asia

A representative of the CCC went to visit organisations in Indonesia (Garteks), Thailand (YCW) and Philippines (FFW) to prepare the Barcelona meeting and discuss collaboration. After Barcelona a follow up meeting took place between the CCC and Venny from Garteks and Ludy from FFW where a working plan was agreed upon.

• Social label : CCC participated in a seminar on the law proposal for a Belgian social label.

Companies

- Triumph International
Within this campaign Vêtements propres and "Actions Birmanie" worked together. An action was conducted and a press conference was held on the 28th of March. 41.000 post cards were printed and very well distributed (16.500 distributed through the magazine "Imagine"). They were sent to Triumph's office in Belgium who contacted the Swiss headquarter. Triumph answered each sender with the same letter as they also sent in Switzerland. The campaign answered the letter.
Activities foreseen: a newsletter on this issue will be published before the end of June. Until now the campaign has been a big success..

- GB-Carrefour
Belgium announced (once again) it's will to collaborate with the Clean Clothes campaigns. GB wants to hire Group One, which is a consultancy group for sustainable development, which should follow and organise implementation inside GB. The CCC met with the French campaign to coordinate the work. We informed GB of our demands which should be met before we could start a collaboration.

Legal initiatives

• Belgian law for a social label
  The Parliament and the Senate voted for the law; four ministries are busy with the texts for implementation. Both the campaigns in Belgium participated in several round tables and seminars in this context. Some consultation of civil society, companies, trade unions and NGOs took place
  The law has to be modified according to EU and WTO laws. The new proposal will be discussed in a commission of the Parliament before the end of June. One of the modifications concerns the non discrimination between a Belgian product and a product coming from other countries. This could mean that a Belgian product can receive the label if the product is made with respect to ILO core conventions.
• Extraterritoriality law
  We are in discussion with a senator to organize a "hearing" in the Senate about this law in September 2001. This is an interesting initiative as it could lead to more binding law. Belgium is a pioneer in this. At the moment there is a court case on Rwanda, which is also a case on extra-territoriality.
  Also corporations can be sued. A person can file a complaint against a corporation for crimes against humanity.
• Public procurement
  There are discussions taking place with the minister of sport of the French speaking part of Belgium to launch a campaign to submit public funding of sport clubs to ethical procurement. We are searching for an alternative product to propose, this can be seen as a positive symbol. We will discuss this during the next academical year.

Partners

• Magasins du monde-OXFAM will organise a partners' forum from 3 to 6 October 2001, in Gembloux. A part of this forum will concern the Clean Clothes campaign and the possibility to develop a mass consumption alternative. Partners and representatives of the Clean Clothes campaigns will be invited to actively participate in this forum.
• OXFAM International campaign on trade will be launched in April 2002. Till October 2002 there will be actions on labour rights issues, with a focus on toys. The campaign will be coordinated by OXFAM Australia and OXFAM Hong Kong. The representative of OXFAM Solidarité in Cambodia is the lead of the partners working group for South East Asia. Carole Crabbé is part of the working group which has to define the objectives and content.

Activities:

A Trilateral Agreement was signed on May 14 2001 between Terre de Femmes, BGRF (Bulgarian Gender Research Foundation) and Podkrepa with the intent to share the minimal funds available for a start-up. Given the extremely limited funding it was decided that each participating organisation is to make their own efforts to seek funding for their future CCC-related activities. Representatives of the CCC France are approached for involvement with an observer status at the future meetings.
They want to have the first kick-off meeting soon with the Romanians, no date yet. Topics which can be discussed there are the impact of globalisation, regulation on international instruments, trade unions and the presentation of the project.
Two part-time volunteers presently run CCC-Bulgaria. Podkrepa has also assigned a part-time volunteer to the Project. It is not clear yet what organisational approach is best, to be independent form BGRF or not etc. These are questions to be answered after detailed consultations with and studying the experience of other countries' campaigns and NGOs. The partnership with Podkrepa is going well. A decision was taken to set-up national groups of experts (in Bulgaria and Romania) composed of representatives from the trade unions, experts on standards and statistics in order to collect and process information on wages, working time, employment contracts, insurance, level of unionising.

Research

• In mid-May 2001 a joint visit (representatives from TdF, Podkrepa and BGRF) was paid to the region of Sandanski in Southwest Bulgaria. Bettina Musiolek, TdF coordinator for South-Eastern Europe, initiated the visit. The information that was gathered was very interesting.
• After the development of the questionnaires an on site research will be done in selected sample regions (1-2 for Bulgaria and 1 for Romania).

Activities:

• Protest cards against Nike and Adidas, T-Shirts with the Logo "let's run fair" were produced.
• March 7th 2001 a film event was organised with 4 short documentary films (CCC film, SEWU film and two from Austria) and a movie from Karin Brandauer "Einstweilen wird es mittag"
• March 8th 2001 an action day took place in front of H&M, C&A and P&C in a big shopping area in Vienna, with street theatre, information tables, distributing protest cards and collecting signatures against these shops and against NIKE and ADIDAS
• March 21st 2001 CCC organised a public forum in Vienna on the informal sector " Der Multis neue Kleider..../Making invisible work visible" with Namrata Bali from SEWA-India, Rosie Makosa from SEWU/South Africa, Maria Emilia Tijoux from AnaClara/Chile, Anneke van Luijken/IRENE, Bettina Musiolek from CCC/Germany and Eva Angerler from an Austrian trade union. A press conference was held with the guests. After the forum, a tour with foreign guests to schools, the green party was organised and a workshop for teachers. This event received good attention from Austrian media: One television program, two radio programs, a newspaper and several magazines reported.
  After the conference we planned to visit the Austrian representative of NIKE Mr. Kerscher, but he didn't answer our letters and calls, nor did his public relation manager Petra Gold receive us. She said that they know the CCC and if we want to discuss the topic we should contact the office in Brussels. The postcards we "could" send by post.
• May 2001: In Graz/Steiermark a street-poster (3meters x 4meters) competition was finished. A school-class created the winner-poster with a skeleton and the logo of CCC and the question " Do you wear clean?" The competition was organised by Südwind Graz with the support of an EU-Youth program. 100 of these posters hang all over Graz for a month.

Besides these events we held workshops, speeches and participated in public discussions during the whole period (schools, trade union, women groups, catholic groups)

Plans for the future:

• At the moment we are planning for the next two years. A strategy meeting of Austrian CCC took place in May where the last three years were evaluated and goals for the future discussed. Working groups were established: an action planning group, a legal-initiatives-group, an Austrian enterprises-group, and a consumer-network-group. Coordination work has to be done within the different CCC organisations and projects. And above all financial and general reporting work has to be done about the last year of the EU-project.
• These days the new Austrian Newsletter will be published.

Outreach

Three alternative fashion shows were held in Norfolk, plus preparatory workshops for young people participating (secondary schools, art college, further education college). Press coverage plentiful and favourable. New website is at: http://www.labourbehindthelabel.org

Umbro

Based on the study of labour standards conducted in Vietnam last autumn (e-mail version available from LBL), a proposal has been made to Umbro to collaborate over monitoring the factories concerned. At this stage, Umbro appear to have agreed to disclose their exact sources. LBL is due to meet with Umbro in June to discuss the proposal. The intention would be to press the company to make such procedures an integral part of its policy and practice.

Living wage follow up

We have analysed the responses of companies targeted, assessed the extent to which they answer our concerns. Responses (from Etam, Nike, Reebok, Gap, Virgin, Storehouse and C&A) tended to be general statements of sourcing policy and to ignore the LW focus of the campaign; we have written back to the above companies, seeking clarification where needed, commenting on their response and, where our information permitted, signalling discrepancies between theory and practice. Only Reebok has replied, only C&A still expected to reply as mailed later than others; written to companies which did not reply (adidas, Arcadia, Benetton, French Connection, River Island and Sears), asking for clarification as to their policy and practice. Only Adidas and Arcadia have replied; written to garment retailers which are members of ETI to ask how they had addressed the living wage challenge. All have replied.

A report is now being drafted, which will include:

• the context in which LW campaigns were launched in 1999 (using country specific data, adding case studies of Par Garment, Tuntex, UK homeworkers, etc). plus what is a living wage section;
• CCC Campaigns: how did each CCC campaign approach living wage issue, to what extent they campaigned on issue, with what impact, etc;
• State of pay 2000-01. Based on studies conducted by our Southern partners; on company specific information where available; on responses from ETI members and other European companies committed to a living wage
• Recommendations - to companies, campaigns, consumers.

LBL status

LBL became a company limited by guarantee on 6 March 2001. It is now officially independent but still staffed and financed by NEAD and WWW till October 2001. One key funding proposal completed (outcome in October), another to be written for next round of EC's DG Development.

Publications:

• a small kind of pocket booklets for young people
• Work done in Bangladesh, two articles

1. Clean Clothes Communities

• The Amsterdam city council accepted a resolution on clean procurement, asking services who are buying working clothes to take into account labour conditions and environmental effects. Dutch CCC started research to see where working clothes are being bought, by whom and under which conditions. Report will be ready after the summer.
• There will be elections for local city government in March 2002. The Dutch CCC is targeting several political parties, asking them to adapt in their program a resolution on clean clothes communities and to use 'clean' t-shirts in their campaign.

2. Fair Wear Charter Foundation (EHH)

• There is a new director (Frans Papma).
• There is a proposal for the second phase of the pilot projects. This will be aimed at implementing standards of the fair wear charter.
• A Dutch NGO (Solidaridad) started with clean jeans, which will be on the market soon. They use SA8000, although EHH approached them several times about their project. There will be talks between EHH and solidaridad.

3. Companies

From October 2000 till March 2001 SOMO did a research in India and Sri Lanka into labour conditions for garments made for Dutch retailers. Companies are: V&D, Hunkemöller, HEMA and WE international. Problems that are found are: low wages, long, forced overtime, and no freedom of association. Results of the research will be presented to the Dutch retailers. The report was postponed, and will now be published in July. Some of the investigated factories produce for other brands, such as Karstadt.
In autumn 2001 Dutch CCC will work with the Consumers Union to present a scorecard on these and other companies.

4. Corporate social responsibility (CSR)

A Manifest on corporate social responsibility was drafted by India Committee of the Netherlands (CCC member) and signed by more then 30 Dutch NGOs in February 2001. The Dutch government responds that CSR is something that can be worked out between NGOs and corporations, the Dutch governement doesn't want to make binding rules which corporations need to respect when operating abroad. A hearing was held in the Dutch parliament in June 2001, with participants from NGOs and companies. The Dutch parliament will discuss CSR in autumn 2001.

5. Legal

The Dutch CCC contacted the law clinic, an organisation linked with the juridical department of the University of Amsterdam. They did research on possibilities of having a court case in the Netherlands under European law. They also did research on the possibilities of public authorities to make clean purchasing, and if this is not forbidden by non-discrimination treaties of the WTO.

6. Biological cotton (Alternative Consumers Union)

Meeting with 7 directors of companies (15 were invited): C&A, Hema, Intress, Ollily, V&D, Cora Kemperman, Timmermans Confectie. With C&A the Alternative Consumers Union made another appointment, C&A already has the Okotex-label. They don't advertise with it either. Extended studies will focus on setting up a consumer campaign. There will be a campaign together with the consumers union.

7. Triumph: Burma:

The Dutch CCC did an action on 19 January on Triumph. We did an action at the entry of V&D (which is owned by KBB/Vendex) and sells Triumph, which is located in a busy street. We burned bra's under the slogan: support breasts, not dictators. Although we did ask the management of V&D to come out and meet us, they wouldn't do it. On the 17th of March there was a meeting with KBB/Vendex. The delegation was led by the trade union FNV, and other participants were Dutch CCC and the Burma Committee Netherlands (BCN). We delivered a statement also on behalf of NOVIB (a large development NGO). In the beginning of June 240.000 free cards were distributed through the Netherlands on Triumph, and also about 70.000 protest cards through the participating organisations. On the 11th of June CCC did a labelling action in a busy shopping street in Amsterdam. The 11th of June was the date that the ILO discussed their policy on Burma. There will be a public action in early autumn.

8. Dutch Urgent Appeal:

• We want to get more subscribers to the Dutch urgent appeal letters (currently there are approximately 250). Therefore we are going to distribute the letters and information also digital and on our website. We targeted new groups and send the latest protest letter around to email-distribution lists.
• In November 2000 fire in factory in Bangladesh. Dutch protest letter sent to Zeeman, C&A, Vendex/KBB. Only Zeeman & C&A reacted.
• Other Dutch Urgent appeal on Triumph in Burma (sent out in April 2001)

9. South Africa

Research was done in Lesotho and Swaziland by SOMO, factories were visited, management, trade unions, ngos, workers interviewed. There is a lot of investment coming from Taiwan, because of bilateral relationships, most labour conditions have been deteriorating according to local trade unions. In Lesotho and Swaziland clothing production goes mainly to US, with a small quantity to the UK and Germany. There is already an urgent appeal being send around from Lesotho. Although this is about clothes sold to the US it's a good idea to distribute it because it's the first appeal from Lesotho. Also research has been done in Botswana through the partner organisation in South Africa, and some of the production there is also for Europe.

Other activities:

• The Dutch CCC got a new member: the NJMO (National Youth Environmental Organisation) who is also working on clothes.
• We will rearrange our website, so that information will be easier to find
• International Newsletter: Nr. 13 came out in November 2000, Nr. 14 is on its way, and will probably be published in July 2001
• Dutch newsletter: one was published in December 2000, the next one will be published in July 2001.
• Fashion files: Plans are that when we give a workshop to young people, to let them sign a piece of textile and we want to present this to companies and famous Dutch persons in spring 2001.
• Anne van Schaik joined an ASEED-conference in Estonia on influence of TNC's in the United Nations.
• New project: the clothes she wears: a volunteer at the Clean Clothes Campaign started a project which consists of an exhibition on the wardrobe of 6 women all over the world. The exhibition will show the clothes, stories on the women and of course the stories behind the clothes. This will be exhibited in textile museums and in shopping malls.

CCC-Switzerland: Clean Clothes Campaign

Companies

Triumph: Burma case

• All the information on the case is posted on the website (www.cleanclothes.ch). In Switzerland there were public actions in Lausanne (19.1.), Zurich (1.5.) and St. Gallen (31.5.). We sent out 35,000 postcards and got almost 4,000 back.

Tirupur research : Case Vögele
As a follow up of the Vögele / Jumbo / Tirupur case the Swiss CCC together with the Ducth India Comitee realised a research in Tirupur, India. Problems that were found in the research were:
Codes of conduct are not known and there is no monitoring. The two companies announced improvements in their codes of conduct. Other problems: the legal working time is not respected, minimum wage is not paid even if workers work overtime, child labour is found in one of the two factories.There is some new information on Vögele. But all the letters are written in German / French and the answers are not very easy to communicate. Since it is a public company, they run a public annual meeting at the 16th of Mai. At the annual press conference (17th April) they also took position on the social issues. But till now, they have only made announcements:

1. They will introduce a code of conduct, which is identically with the norms of SA8000, and they will in the future only order from SA8000 certified companies. For some of their more important suppliers, they will pay a part of the costs to get certified.
2. Vögele did not accept the principle of an independent monitoring
3. They say that they wanted to help the children from the TV-broadcasting but could not find them in Tirupur. ere was a broadcasting on the Swiss television on child labour in factories which produce for Vogele in Octber 2000 and May 2001.
   Vögele is paying for some social projects which they run together with LINK also associated with SA8000/SAI.

Jumbo presented a new code of conduct which was the same as the CCC-Code. But they did not accept the principle of an independent control and did not want to be responsible for implementation. We do not know the role that their mother-company plays (the large French company Carrefour).

Swiss CCC campaigned on 16 companies, 3 adopted CCC code including independent verification and monitoring and participate in a pilot project (Migros, Mabrouc and Veillon). Since June 2000, 4 other companies have improved their code of conduct (Coop, Spengler, Vogele, Calida). Jumbo has presented a new code of conduct which was more or less the same as the CCC-code, but they didn't accept the principle of independent control and they didn't want to be responsible for implementation.So, the last five companies all adopted codes of conduct which guarantee the same rights as CCC-code, but they are incomplete regarding independent verification. In total 8 reacted to campaigning!

Swiss pilote-project: what's going on?

See http://www.cleanclothes.org/codes/monitoring for updates on the monitoring/pilot projects

Other:

• There will be a reader for the high schools (16-20 years) which will be published in the spring of next year
• Planning CCC Switzerland: working on evaluation, for one more year we are in the same coalition. This will end in spring next year (May), so we have to think how we will work after that with companies, monitoring and campaigning.

campaign

Since January 2000, "De l'éthique sur l'étiquette" collective (the French CCC) has been working on a campaign to lobby for ethical public procurement.

In April 2001 more than 130 municipalities voted to support a statement in which they say they want to be ethical consumers and will act accordingly. This was quite a success, considering that the campaign's goal was to gain support from 50 municipalities.

Now, the French campaign is trying to create a network of "ethical consumer cities." Such cities would be involved in: working with the French CCC to create a social label and lobbying the government to increase possibilities for linking public procurement and good working conditions.

To support this initiative, the French campaign launched a campaign targeting candidates in the March 2001 municipal elections. Almost 200 local leaders from all the political parties, in 100 towns which have not already agreed to support ethical public procurements (including 20 towns that have more than 100,000 inhabitants) said that they will propose the adoption of a political statement on that issue if they are elected.

Companies

In May 2000, the campaign published a "report card" (carnet de note), inspired by the report cards that are given to the school students to evaluate their work. The French CCC decided to do the same with France's top retailers in the two sectors they have targetted during their campaigns: hypermarkets and sporting goods retailers (14 companies in all).

The publication of the report card, the media publicity and the letters sent by consumers to the companies had a positive impact. Two companies, Leclerc and Intermarché, appointed staff members to work on a strategy for ethical trade and a code of conduct. The CCC has met with two people from Intermarché to discuss this. Super U is working on a social charter.
Cora and Casino, which have a common buying office ("Opera") now makes reference to SA 8000 standards and finances external social audits ("SGS style").

Next step: Toy campaign 2001

For Christmas 2001 the French CCC will be launching a toy campaign (which will probably run for two years) and will publish a pétition and a new report card. This campaign will target big retailers (50% of the toys are sold in France by hypermarkets such as Carrefour and Leclerc) and 25% by specialised retailers who only sell toys (the biggest ones are Toys-R-Us, La grande récré, and JouéClub).