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NEWSLETTER 17, December 2003 Clean
Clothes Communities in Europe |
In the Netherlands, Flanders and Belgium, the Clean Clothes Communities
project is growing stronger and stronger. Municipalities are asked to sign a resolution,
stating that their procurement of public uniforms and garment will be put out
to tender according to the CCC standards and model Code of Conduct.
In 2004
and 2005, the CCC will start to spread the project to other countries where a
CCC is based. A European meeting was held in Paris in October to exchange experiences
and set up common goals and strategy. CCC representatives from Dutch and French
speaking Belgium, France, Germany, the Netherlands, Spain, Sweden and the United
Kingdom and others attended. A study on sourcing companies of community uniforms
will be conducted in 2004, and a new meeting held at the end of that year. The
next edition of the newsletter will report more on this issue.
Demanding
Clean Clothes in the Workplace
Many workers are provided with clothes
to wear at work (work wear) by their employers, for example security vests, overalls,
and shirts. In 2003 the Belgian trade unions and CCC members ABVV and ACV launched
a campaign for the Belgian Schone Kleren Campagne, to ask employers to provide
employees with "clean clothes".
Workers participating in the campaign
will demand that their employers buy work wear produced in good labor conditions
according to ILO conventions. This initiative provides workers with an opportunity
to actively support the CCC. With the clean work clothes initiative, trade union
representatives throughout Belgium will be raising issues of labor practices in
the garment industry with management.
