CCC - adidas-Salomon negotiations break down again
For the second time within one year, adidas-Salomon has ended
negotiations to reach an agreement with the German CCC on a pilot
project for the monitoring of social standards with suppliers
in Central America. In a statement dated May 4th, sent to David
Husselbee, adidas' global director for social and environmental
affairs, the CCC said that they find the reasons for the cancellation
unconvincing.
After receiving negative press in recent due to the dirty labor
practices of its suppliers around the world, in early 2000 adidas
appeared to be ready to reach an agreement with the CCC for a
pilot project in El Salvador. The project was conceived to actively
involve local organisations in monitoring labor standards. After
initial progress however, adidas broke off the negotiations in
April 2000 claiming that the local monitoring partners proposed
by the CCC -- GMIES -- was not "independent enough".
The CCC believes this claim is unfounded. Through the years, GMIES
has established a solid track record in monitoring labor standards
for other firms, notably the GAP.
A year later adidas informed the CCC that they would prefer to
cooperate with the US-based Fair Labor Association (FLA). The
FLA code of labor practice is considered by the CCC and many others
to be seriously flawed, not only in terms of the scope of their
standards but also with regard to their monitoring procedures.
In comparison, the CCC code of conduct is more comprehensive.
The CCCs in Switzerland, the Netherlands, Sweden, and France have
already made agreements to carry out pilot projects to test monitoring
and verification systems with several companies in developing
countries in which southern organizations participate. Adidas,
however, prefers not to cooperate -- not only with the CCC but
in other legitimate forums as well: the company refused to participate
at a hearing on labor standards organized by the European Parliament
(see related article elsewhere in the newsletter).
The CCC believes it is time for adidas to do more. They should
cooperate with civil society organisations such as the CCC to
improve their labor rights record. Despite claims to the contrary,
for instance, a new study revealed that in the adidas manufacturing
plant Hermosa in El Salvador, production workers are still subject
to forced overtime and pregnancy tests. While in Indonesia, a
trade union leader was imprisoned for 20 days for her union activities
at PT Panarub, another adidas supplier. It is this kind of news
that has made headlines for years now, yet adidas still has not
taken constructive action to systematically improve working conditions
for those who make their products.
Pressuring Karstadt/Quelle
March 8 (International Women's Day) a CCC campaign targeting
another German heavyweight, Karstadt/Quelle (KQ, for short), was
launched. KQ is actually the biggest department store chain in
Europe and ranked sixth worldwide. KQ's empire includes several
big names in the German garment industry - Hertie, Neckermann,
Hess Natur, Runners Point, and Wertheim, to name a few. KQ operates
stores not only in Germany, but also in Switzerland and Austria.
To its credit, KQ has distinguished itself as one of the few
big German businesses which supports Fair Trade initiatives (some
Fair Trade and Rugmark products are available in KQ stores) and
one of its newly-acquired business interests, Hess Natur, sells
environment-friendly products. But the German CCC wants KQ to
broaden its social and environmental commitments further and embrace
the CCC's Code of Conduct and accept independent monitoring. The
CCC found out, for instance, that workers from one Quelle (that's
the mail-order part of the business) supplier in Indonesia were
forced to do overtime and had to work up to 82 hours per week!
It is too report any concrete response from the company but one
thing is certain, somebody from KQ is now starting to count the
number of protest cards coming their way.
Minding Puma's business
The interaction between the German CCC and Puma - two meetings
and exchanges of letters - has so far proved fruitless. In a letter
to Renate Huppertz, the German CCC coordinator dated January 18
this year, Dr. Reiner Hengstmann, Puma's director for environmental
and social affairs, insisted that their own code is comparable
to that of CCC and that their own internal auditors make sure
that their codes are implemented. On the specific issue of a "living
wage," Hengstmann claimed that their own code guarantees
that workers are paid the respective required minimum wages which
are assumed to cover their needs. The message was clear: so far
Puma is not taking the campaign's demands seriously.
But the CCC is resolved not to let Puma off so easily. CCC activists
are now collecting fresh data on Puma's business practices abroad
and planning to publicize them as soon as possible. Difficult
research, but with the help of CCC partner NGOs and trade unions
in the countries where Puma goods are produced, this work can
be made easier.
Strengthening and Strategizing
A big boost to the campaign this year and something that firms
like adidas and Puma should notice that two big national youth
organizations have recently joined the CCC: the Protestant Youth
Federation (Arbeitsgemeinschaft der Evangelischen Jugend /AEJ
) and the Federation of German Catholic Youth Organizations (Bund
der Katholischen Jugend / BDKJ). The AEJ and BDKJ are two of the
largest youth organizations in Germany and as such have an influence
on German youth, who are one of the main target groups for the
marketing efforts of the sportswear industry.
As the German CCC welcomes its new members, another campaign activity
is being developed. A major "Sports Congress" is planned
for just before the Football World Cup to be held in Japan and
Korea in June 2001. The idea is that the Sports Congress will
gather together German sports celebrities, students, youth and
sports organizations, as well as sportswear companies to draw
attention to the plight of workers in the sportswear industry
and to the shortcomings of the code of conduct of the World Federation
of the Sporting Goods Industry (for more on this code see "What
is the WFSGI" in newsletter 13). Student and sports activists
from other countries are also invited to join the event. For example,
students from United Students Against Sweatshops (USAS) from the
United States have already expressed interest in participating.
One idea is to have student activists exchange information about
their campaign experiences and other topics through internet chat
rooms prior to the Congress.
On another front, CCC is actively involved in 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. This initiative intends to organize
a dialogue between representatives from industry, trade unions,
government, and non-governmental organizations to advance the
cause of codes of conduct and independent verification. The German
roundtables are supposed to analyze and develop options for monitoring
and independent verification of codes of conduct. At the first
two meetings in January and March 2001 a document on the aims
and objectives was adopted and experiences from existing code
projects (ETI, FLA, SAI, WRC and CCC) were compared. A third meeting
will take place in July 2001.
Urgent appeals work will receive more attention from the German
campaign this year, with a revitalized urgent appeals team and
one staff member at the German CCC coordination office specifically
taking up this work. Since March this year, an "Urgent Action"
section has been added to the German CCC website (www.sauberekleidung.de)
where readers can read about current cases of labor rights violations
in which workers organizations are calling for international solidarity
actions. Visitors can download protest letters to be sent to the
companies involved. A number of surfers have already signed up
to join the "Urgent Action" mailing list.
