The Clean Clothes Campaign is an international campaign,
consisting of a loose, informal international partner network
of NGOs, unions, individuals and institutions in most countries
where garments are produced, organisations in "consumer"
countries where these garments are sold, CCC "project
groups" in several garment-producing countries (Eastern
Europe, India), an international secretariat (based in Amsterdam)
and Clean Clothes Campaigns (CCCs) in nine European countries.
These CCCs are autonomous coalitions consisting of NGOs
(consumer, research, women's, fair trade and youth organisations,
solidarity groups, churches, etc.) and trade unions, each
with a coordinator and a secretariat. CCC coalitions can
be found in Austria, Belgium (North and South), France,
Germany, the Netherlands, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and
the United Kingdom.
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photo: Rena Kläder exhibition
at the annual "Bok & Bibliotek" bookfair
in Gothenburg, 2004.
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Although the European CCCs share a common aim and cooperate
on joint projects, they each have their own flavour - due
to their composition, history, cultural context and style.
We'd like to share with you the workings of the different
campaigns. Second in this series is the Swedish CCC: Rena
Kläder.
Rena Kläder - The Beginnings
In June 1997 the documentary film "Fashion at What
Price?" about the Swedish retailer H&M was shown
on Swedish television. The film seemed to come out of the
blue and kicked off a debate in Sweden among the public
and organisations that were concerned about the issues of
rights violations raised in the film. Within months the
CCC, or Rena Kläder in Swedish, was formed by trade
unions and the research organisation Fair Trade Centre.
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The Rena Kläder Coalition
Is Made Up Of:
Development NGOs
Research Organisations
Trade Unions
Youth Organisations
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In the first years, Rena Kläder saw independent verification
and monitoring of labour standards as vital, and so from
1998 to 2001 a pilot project was run with the brands H&M,
Indiska, Lindex and KappAhl. So, at this time the Swedish
CCC focussed largely on work with specific companies. In
2002 the current coordinator Joel Lindefors was hired. His
assignment was to find funds to set up a campaign that would
encompass more areas of CCC work. He succeeded, receiving
money from the Swedish government for the period 2003-2006.
The first year was used to build up the national coalition
and to become more involved in international networking.
In 2004, Rena Kläder came into full swing with the
"Play Fair at the Olympics" campaign. And it seemed
to hit home - while in 2003 thirty actions took place under
the CCC flag, in 2004 122 were recorded.
2005 saw the Swedish CCC take on yet more activities. There
was a school education tour, a company roundtable, and the
campaign began circulating international urgent appeals.
Preparations began for some big new campaigns, in particular
one on public procurement scheduled to start in 2006.
Rena Kläder's Structure
From 2001, nine organisations formed the Rena Kläder
coalition; recently this grew to ten (see box). New organisations
can apply for membership and the platform decides who to
accept. Members have to agree with the CCC areas of work
and aims, and pay a membership fee of 3,000 SEK (approximately
€300) a year.
The coalition organisations meet twice a year. A smaller
working group of five is elected to steer the campaign on
a more regular basis, meeting around once a month; representatives
from any of the member organisations can also participate
in these meetings. There, national issues and campaigns
are discussed, as well as the international issues that
are relevant for the Swedish CCC.
Rena Kläder's coordination office is based in the
LO-TCO Secretariat for International Trade Union Development
Cooperation (a trade union development organisation). Lindefors
thinks this is a good idea, to keep the union involved in
the campaign, to attract funding and to be able to make
use of the resources, network and contacts that they have.
Targeted Activities
A major focus of the Swedish CCC has been the "Play
Fair at the Olympics" campaign. In one well known action,
a troop of activists ran through Stockholm clad in black,
stopping traffic and passers-by to perform a rap song describing
poor working conditions in the garment industry and, in
the final verse, saying what was expected of the companies
and Olympic Committees.
Rena Kläder is very keen on activities that reach
a younger audience. Alternative fashion shows, music festival
tours and other creative ways of campaigning have been designed
to focus on specific target groups. Lindefors sees this
as a very important aspect of campaigning: carefully constructing
your message towards your chosen audience, instead of loosely
shooting from the hip.
To give that audience - and organisations within the coalition
- more tools with which to take action, the campaign now
circulates the CCC's international urgent appeals. When
these cases involve a Scandinavian brand, the campaign tries
to follow up more intensively. In 2006, the campaign hopes
to build on this work with more cases and a stronger support
network.
Also in 2006, a new campaign will be launched in Sweden
on public procurement. In order to promote respect for human
rights by the public bodies to whom people pay their taxes,
the campaign is going to try and persuade cities to buy
ethically-produced workwear. Rena Kläder will market
this local government behaviour as "modern" and
"trend-setting," as well as a way for the region
or community to become more attractive to residents.
The primary target will be local politicians and civil
servants, with activists convincing them through action
meetings, examples of best practices and success stories,
readymade resolutions and guidance on procurement practices,
backed up by research into the buying policy of six Swedish
regions. It is set to be the biggest Rena Kläder campaign
yet, in cooperation with the Swedish Fair Trade organisation.
The Swedish Context
Generally, in Sweden there are very few activist campaigns
and almost none like Rena Kläder. The most similar
one is the Fair Trade campaign, which works with the same
organisations and activists as Rena Kläder. As a result
they feel there is space for the CCC Sweden to operate and
grow.
While Rena Kläder might have a way to go before it
can boast high name recognition, the issues taken up by
the campaign are quite well known in Sweden, according to
Lindefors. Nowadays activists don't need to explain basic
garment industry labour rights issues. School children are
already interested and keen to hear more; an encouraging
indication of the new generation's perspective on the issues.
But they are a generation that wants to be engaged in a
different way - and so Rena Kläder tries to cater their
campaign structure to those needs: specific projects, aimed
at young people that enable them to participate even if
they aren't able to commit a lot of time.
New Collaboration in Scandinavia
In the region awareness-raising about garment workers'
rights is carried out not only in Sweden, but also by NGOs
and trade unions in Finland, Denmark and Norway. Yet there
has been surprisingly little cooperation between the Scandinavian
groups.
So, in January 2006, CCC Sweden organised a Nordic meeting.
The aim was to share experiences and knowledge as well as
to strengthen the dialogue and cooperation between similar
initiatives, networks and organisations in the four countries.
It turned out that many of the groups present are involved
in campaigning on public procurement, sportswear or Scandinavian
fashion companies. Together with joint research and work
on urgent appeals cases, this gives ample opportunity for
cooperation with the European campaigns with whom CCC Sweden
has most in common. And perhaps some day a new CCC will
emerge from this internationally-oriented Rena Kläder
work…
