1)
CCC Report: How Weak Social Auditing is Keeping Workers
in Sweatshops
Research for a new CCC report, Looking For A Quick Fix:
How Weak Social Auditing Is Keeping Workers In Sweatshops,
November 2005 carried out in Bangladesh, China, Kenya, India,
Indonesia, Morocco, Pakistan and Romania, found that social
audits are often short, superficial, and sloppy, and are
often conducted by global firms whose staff are generally
unskilled and inexperienced. Audits are often not followed
up with sufficient remediation. The lack of transparency
within the audit industry also hinders serious discussion
about its policy, practices and possible improvements to
its methods.
Available at www.cleanclothes.org/publications/quick_fix.htm
2) Freedom of Association and
the Right to Collective Bargaining Primer
This November 2005 Clean Clothes Campaign Primer focusing
on the global apparel industry provides background information
on various aspects of freedom of association and collective
bargaining, particularly in the context of multi-stakeholder
initiatives that deal with codes of conduct. The report
highlights how freedom of association and collective bargaining
are universal human rights. It details the international
instruments where these standards are codified and how they
are dealt with – both through International Labour
Organization supervisory mechanisms and national legislation.
It then offers readers brief explanations of key subjects
relating to organizing and collective bargaining and deals
with different Code initiatives and their treatment of freedom
of association and collective bargaining. In final sections,
it raises some key points for further consideration and
cites various sources that can be accessed for more information
on this topic.
Available at www.cleanclothes.org/codes/05-foa_primer.htm
3)
Asda Wal-Mart – The Alternative Report
The second in a series of War on Want alternative company
reports looks at the world’s largest retail company
Wal-Mart. The September 2005 report describes how Wal-Mart’s
pursuit of the lowest possible prices has taken a heavy
toll on its employees and suppliers. This report reviews
Wal-Mart’s record over and against its rhetoric on
corporate social responsibility and also recommends action
to redress some of the damage inflicted by the company’s
operations.
Available at www.waronwant.org/download.php?id=369
4) MSN Codes Memo
The September 2005 issue of Maquila Solidarity Network’s
Codes Memo includes an article on ‘CSR Reports: Ratcheting
Up Transparency Standards?’ The second main article
is on how the ‘MFA Forum Promotes Joint Action in Bangladesh’.
A third article critically assesses the‘Business Social
Compliance Initiative.’
Available at www.maquilasolidarity.org/resources/codes/index.htm
5) MSN Profile of Successful Campaigns
Maquila Solidarity Network (MSN) has published an 82-page
booklet, called Brand Campaigns & Worker Organizing:
Lessons from Lesotho, Thailand and Honduras. The document
profiles three successful international campaigns that helped
defend workers' right to organize. Based on MSN's involvement
in these three campaigns and on interviews with other participants,
the booklet draws both positive and negatives lessons for
labour rights advocates in both North and South. The booklet,
published in October 2005, is available in English and Spanish
for $7 (including postage).
To order and for more information, email info@maquilasolidarity.org
6)
Olympics Campaign: An Evaluation Of The Company Responses
The Play Fair at the Olympics Campaign (PFOC) urged 'sportswear
companies and the International Olympic Committee (IOC)
to bring about an industry-wide solution to the abuse and
exploitation of workers in global sportswear supply chains'.
In the six-month run-up to the Olympic Games (March 2004
- August 2004) a number of companies - Asics, Fila, Kappa,
Lotto, Mizuno, Puma, and Umbro - were highlighted during
the international public campaign. This report, The Play
Fair at the Olympics Campaign: An Evaluation Of The Company
Responses from June 2005, presents an accurate reflection
of the various activities and interactions that took place
up until two months after the Olympic Games ended, and indicates
the steps that have been undertaken by the PFOC highlighted
companies.
Available at
www.cleanclothes.org/campaign/olympics2004-eval-company-response.htm
7)
Fair Purchasing Practices?
Addressing the negative impact that purchasing practices
or sourcing systems can have on code compliance was one
of main demands in the Play Fair at the Olympics campaign.
This CCC paper, Fair Purchasing Practices? Some issues for
Discussion briefly discusses the main elements related to
purchasing practices and their relation to the CCC's campaign
activities.
Available at
www.cleanclothes.org/publications/05-05-purchasing_practices.htm
8) The Business Social Compliance
Initiative (BSCI): A Critical Perspective
The Clean Clothes Campaign released a 20-page paper in
June 2005 providing a critical perspective of the Business
Social Compliance (BSCI) Initiative. Under the aegis of
some of Europe’s largest retailers, the Initiative
sets out to audit and monitor the social performance of
their suppliers worldwide by utilising one common system.
This document provides some basic information on the BSCI
and outlines the many weaknesses of this industry-controlled
auditing initiative.
Available at www.cleanclothes.org/codes/05-05-bsci-report.htm
9)
Building International Solidarity: African Asian Networking
This is a report of a solidarity workshop for African garment
workers held in Swaziland in May 2005 that aimed to develop
campaigning initiatives to improve working conditions in
Eastern and Southern African garment factories. The workshop
focused specifically on developing initiatives to address
working conditions in Asian manufacturer multinationals,
producing for large retailers, especially Wal-Mart. In cooperative
solidarity, trade unions, shop stewards, and NGOs shared
information and developed an action plan in order to improve
working conditions in the region. The report includes profiles
of several Asian TNCs active in Africa.
Available at www.cleanclothes.org/ftp/05-Swaziland-report.pdf
10) Race to the Bottom in the
garment industry and Burmese Migrant Workers
The Race to the Bottom: Exploitation of Workers in the
Global Garment Industry was published by Norwegian Church
Aid in January 2005 and written by Junya Yimprasert of the
Thai Labour Campaign and Petter Hveem, former advisor to
NCA. The paper explores the race to the bottom in garment
producing countries and examines in particular the exploitation
of Burmese migrant workers in the export-processing zone
in Mae Sot, Thailand. The paper demonstrates that the constellation
of strong employers and weak employees in the context of
extreme competition for contracts, combined with non-enforcement
and corruption on the part of the Thai authorities, provides
the foundation for extreme worker exploitation by factory
owners, which in turn is exploited by agents and brands
to keep production costs low. The authors argue that this
is clearly evident in Mae Sot.
Available at www.thailabour.org/docs/index.html
11) Social Auditing in Bulgaria,
Romania and Turkey
The International Labour Organization researched and analysed
auditing and certification initiatives across different
industries in four EU Accession/ Candidate Countries for
Social Auditing in Bulgaria, Romania and Turkey: Results
from survey and case study research, 2005. The close proximity
of these countries to each other and the large amount of
outsourcing from western European firms - particularly in
the garment and textile industries where auditing is probably
the most prevalent - to these countries make them ideal
locations to investigate auditing and certification initiatives.
Among other things, the research aimed to better understand
the costs and benefits associated with social auditing for
employers.
Available at
www.ilo.org/public/english/region/eurpro/ankara/programme/research.htm
12)
Labour Policies Of Work Wear Companies Supplying Public
Authorities In Europe
In 2001, the European work wear market was worth $3.59
billion, and is often bought by public authorities: Experts
estimate public procurement to be responsible for 60 percent
of total work wear sales in the Netherlands. The aim of
the 2005 research by SOMO for the CCC was to provide information
on large companies supplying local authorities and governments
in different European countries and to take a closer look
at the CSR policies of these companies. The latter is particularly
important since public authorities can play a key role in
improving the sustainability of the work wear sector by
including social and environmental criteria in their procurement
procedures.
Available at: http://www.cleanclothes.org/publications/05-11-workwear.htm
13) Background papers on work
hours and living wage
Two background papers on living wages were prepared for
the MIT (Harvard) as input for the Jo-In/MIT meeting on
Exploring common approaches to Corporate Accountability
and Workers’ Rights to held at MIT July 11-12, 2005.
Work Hours, Overtime and Codes of conduct presents an overview
of working time policy and debates surrounding working time.
It concludes that: (i) working time stipulations in codes
of conduct are often not imposing stricter regulation than
exists in many countries; (2) that the codes of conduct
leave many aspects of working time that are regulated by
national legislation out of the codes, such as stipulations
about break time and night work; and, (3) low wages and
the need for producers to meet deadlines are likely the
main drivers of excessive overtime.
Available at: http://www.cleanclothes.org/ftp/05-07-mit_Working_Time.pdf
The second paper – Wages in the Apparel Industry;
what constitutes a decent standard? –seeks to lay out
the three key approaches aimed at providing a “fair
and decent” wage for workers in the global apparel
industry. The three approaches, based upon: 1) legally mandated
minimum wages; 2) prevailing industry wages; and 3) efforts
to promote a living wage will be reviewed, highlighting
the strengths and weaknesses of each approach.
Available at: http://www.cleanclothes.org/ftp/05-07-mit_living_wages.pdf
14)
Workers’ Voices: The situation of women in the Eastern
European and Turkish garment industries:
A report on working conditions in Eastern Europe and Turkey,
based on 256 interviews with garment workers from 55 workplaces.
The conclusion is that all basic labour standards continue
to be violated in Eastern Europe and Turkey.
Available at: http://www.cleanclothes.org/pub.htm
15)
4rd Revised version of: Workers' tool or PR ploy? - A guide
to codes of international labour practice:
Sudwind Institute (member of the German CCC) recently published
the 4th revised edition of "Workers' tool or PR ploy?
A guide to codes of international labour practice".
Available online at: www.suedwind-institut.de/downloads/workers-tool-2005.pdf
and
www.fes.de/Gewerkschaften
as well as at
http://www.cleanclothes.org/codes/05-11-03.htm
