The request for a Session dedicated to the "Workers and Consumers
Rights in the Garment Industry" has been presented by the Clean
Clothes Campaign to the Permanent Peoples' Tribunal" (PPT) with
the following specific aims and questions.
1. To agree to listen to the testimonies of several people who, directly
or indirectly, can come to testify to the working conditions in which
the products of the garment and sportswear industries are manufactured.
The Clean Clothes Campaign would like the companies concerned to take
part in the session too and explain to the Permanent People's Tribunal
why the situations described are such and what steps they have taken
to change them. The Permanent Peoples' Tribunal will assess what political
and legal conclusions are likely to be drawn from these testimonies.
2. On the basis of these testimonies among other things we are asking
the Permanent People's Tribunal to specify the international law that
could be referred to against the present impunity of the transnational
companies. We especially think that it is urgent to legally define the
liability of the buying companies towards their subsidiaries, contractors,
subcontractors and suppliers, and the working conditions prevailing
in these factories.
3. We also ask the Permanent People's Tribunal to assess a third aspect,
namely the consumers' right to be informed of the social conditions
in which articles of clothing and sport shoes are manufactured. If companies
make claims about the conditions under which their products are made,
what is the legal right of consumers to know whether such claims are
true?
4. Lastly the Clean Clothes Campaign puts the following questions to
the Permanent People's Tribunal:
What is, from a legal point of view, the meaning of the codes of conduct?
What should be included in such codes if we want to maximise their
enforceability?
How can the codes of conduct already accepted in the garment and sportswear
sectors be assessed?
How can the Code of Labour Practices for the Apparel Industry including
Sportswear be assessed from a legal point of view?
Which conditions can be mentioned to make the monitoring of the codes
of conduct be efficient?
According to its Statutes, the Permanent People's Tribunal examined
the appropriateness of the request to its competence and goals, as well
as to the contents and methodology of the investigations and documentation
being prepared, and declared its acceptability.
The accused parties were informed of this session of the Tribunal,
according to the rules set out in articles 14 and 15 of the Statutes.
Further action was taken by the proponents of the request and by the
Tribunal itself to assure that all the appropriate information would
be available to the firms which had been selected as relevant model
cases for the hearings.
The aims and the content of this session have deep roots and reflect
close continuity with the investigations and the judgements of some
of the previous sessions. The main conclusions of those sessions specifically
relevant to the present procedure are worth being briefly recalled.
The two verdicts pronounced by the Permanent People's Tribunal on the
responsibilities of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank
(Berlin, 1988; Madrid, 1994) have documented in great detail the structural
economic and financial adjustments which have occurred at an accelerated
pace over the last 15 years. Those adjustments have become a principal
and widespread cause of violation of fundamental human rights for entire
populations, who are living and dying in inhumane conditions, while
small minorities are becoming increasingly wealthy.
We are confronted with a profoundly changed international scenario,
where transnational firms and financial institutions are often more
powerful protagonists than States. International law (the roots of ambiguity
of which have been formally explored by the Permanent People's Tribunal
in its ad hoc Session, Padova-Venezia, 1992) is faced with
the challenge of reconstituting its approach and instrument. The possibility
(and so often the sad reality) of impunity granted by the international
community to individuals and institutions responsible of crimes against
humanity (Permanent People's Tribunal Session in Bogotà, 1991) is even
more real when economic factors and interests are involved. The powerlessness
of existing laws and judicial forums confronted with the massive violations
of fundamental rights by private transnational corporations such as
Union Carbide in the Bhopal disaster (Permanent People's Tribunal Sessions
on Industrial Hazards, Bhopal, 1992, and London, 1994), and by the international
organisations such as the IAEA dominated by private and corporate interests
(Permanent People's Tribunal Session on Chernobyl, Vienna, 1996) is
at the same time a matter of fact, and a challenge. Such institutions
raise a new type of consciousness, and solidarity, as well as stimulate
exploration of new paths for assuring a more adequate representativeness
of workers and communities (Charter on Industrial Hazards and Human
Rights, by the Permanent People's Tribunal jointly with The Pesticide
Trust, UK, and the Other Media, India, 1996).
This scenario has also and most dramatically documented that the
repressive dominance of the international scene by the laws of an economy
governed mainly by market and financial criteria. This economy has little
or no respect for the social conditions and clauses, and has its greatest
impact on the weakest components of society, namely women and children
(Permanent People's Tribunal Session on the Violation of the Rights
of Childhood and Minors, 1995).
the doctrine of the Sessions specifically quoted in paragraph 3 above,
and the documents and legislation of international law referred to there;
the oral and written evidence presented in the course of this Session
on individual cases and on general themes.
Mr. Ciao
China Labour Bulletin, Paris
The Permanent People's Tribunal has listened to and included in its
documentation the following reports presented by experts appointed by
the same PPT:
- BIT, La mondialisation des industries de la chaussure, des textiles
et du vêtements. Organisation Internationale du Travail,Genève, 1996.
- Carole Crabbé, René De Schutter, Denis Lambert, Paul Gruselin, Christophe
Scohier, La mode déshabillée, Magasins du monde-OXFAM, La Déclaration
de Berne, Orcades, 1998
- Chambre des Représentants de Belgique, Proposition de Loi insérant
un article 10quater dans le titre préliminaire du Code de procédure
pénale, en vue de l'incrimination universelle de certaines violations
des droits sociaux fondamentaux (déposée par M.Dirk Van der Maelen)
- Code of Labour Practices for the Apparel Industry including Sportswear.
- Council on Economic Priorities Accreditation Agency (CEP), Social
Accountability 8000, October 1997
- Michel Bonnet, Regards sur les enfants travailleurs, Page Deux,
collection Cahiers Libres, 1998
- Nathalie van Loon, The Clean Clothes Campaign. Campaigning to Improve
the Working Conditions in the Garment Industry Worldwide, Clean Clothes
Campaign, February 1998 (includes the CCC European Code of Conduct).
- Parlamento Italiano, Disciplina della subfornitura nelle attività
produttive, Testo approvato in via definitiva dal Senato della Repubblica
il 7 aprile 1998, non ancora promulgato o pubblicato nella Gazzetta
Ufficiale.
Schone Kleren Campagne (Belgium/Flanders), International Workshop
on: Indipendent Monitoring of Codes of Conduct, Brussels, May 4th,
1998
Introduction
The Permanent People's Tribunal is a Court of
the People.
Permanent People's Tribunals are Public Hearings.
They provided a space, a public space, where the voices
of the dispossessed are heard:
the real life experiences of exploited workers, migrant workers, women
workers.
The Tribunal listens to their stories in their own words;
it keeps memories alive.
Listening to these testimonies challenges the dominant paradigm
of knowledge
refusing to accept that the only way to know is objective, distanced.
They invite us to accept another way of knowing, for
how can poverty be understood without knowing
the poor?
They help move to deeper knowledge,
weaving together the objective analysis with the subjective
testimony,
the personal with the political,
challenging the logic of the dominant discourse
of human rights, of development, of globalisation, of all that is
hegemonic and powerful:
The Tribunals are one attempt to re-define broader political spaces
to break new ground.
This Tribunal received powerful and poignant testimonies:
A subcontractor in Mauritius, producing for a Company in Europe,
employs 300 Chinese workers. The women work seven days a week. Monday
through Friday: they work from
7:30 am until 11:30 pm, Saturday they work until 16:00 and Sunday
till noon.
Their 30 minute dinner breaks and their time off is spent at housing
facilities provided by the Company. Women live literally on top
of
each other, 4 to 8 per tiny room. Their housing facilities are
cramped,
In Bangladesh, the Clean Clothes Campaign found a factory, where
wages are below the legal minimum and working hours exceed the legal
maximum.
In another factory in Indonesia 3,000 workers share just ten toilets.
In a factory in Haiti women are the majority: there are no facilities
of maternity leave or day care centres for children. Pregnant women
had to be sent home: almost all women are abused.
Several testimonies and research case studies focused on the fact
that, in almost all situations eighty per cent of the workforce are
women. Globalisation has brought with it a globalisation of poverty,
and a feminisation of poverty. Poverty indeed, has a woman's
face.
Globalisation is a very complex set of processes that has different
dimensions political, economic and cultural. Globalisation politically
is pressurising the South, the South in the
North and countries in transition to accept a human
rights discourse tied to a market economy. Economically, it hegemonises
through the structural adjustment programs of the world financial
institutions, overwhelming debt and the liberalisation of the domestic
economies to allow the unrestricted entry to transnational capital.
Globalisation at the cultural level not only expresses itself through
the spread of consumerism, its culture and its ethic, but
is a serious threat to community values and cultural diversity.
Globalisation is creating a new poverty.
I.The Social Practices of the Firms of the Garment
Industry and Their General Context
In order to understand the general character of the facts which have
been presented to the Tribunal and which cannot be attributed only
to one or to a small group of enterprises, we must reveal first what
is the general economic context influencing the production process
in the sectors of the garment industry across the world.
I.1. General economic and political aspects
In times of "globalisation" a word which very often is
misused as a way of denying any responsibility for wrongdoings of
governments or corporations Transnational Corporations (TNCs) have
more opportunities for optimising their strategies for profit making
than ever before. Economic globalisation has been accompanied by political
deregulation so that state control of market processes is considerably
reduced and the freedom of choices of economic actors by the same
token is being rapidly extended. The nation state in the western tradition
for at least 300 years always provided the legal framework for market
processes; today the reduced impact of the political system on economic
decisions is resulting in a far reaching denial of social obligations
or environmental commitments by economic actors.
The deconstruction of legal obligations has a negative consequence
for the working of markets because competition needs rules in order
to prevent a disastrous "race to the bottom". Regulations
on working hours and other conditions or health and safety of workers
or use of the natural environment exert a civilising effect on wild
and unregulated competition. However, globalisation and deregulation
are exactly destroying these limits on unfettered capital accumulation.
A critical question is whether and how efficiently voluntary codes
of conduct and other forms of "self-obligations vis-à-vis workers,
concerned citizens and their organisations can substitute for an internationally
enforceable legal framework of decisions undertaken by transnational
firms.
I.1.1. The global economy
Before coming back to this question it is useful to highlight the
main features of the global economy in the 1990s. They can be summarised
in four important points.
A new world order.
First, economic globalisation in the understanding of TNC representatives
or officials of international financial and trade organisations and
of a great part of the public means nothing else than the establishment
of a "new world order" without any alternative. The collapse
of actually existing socialist economies a decade ago therefore is
interpreted as a clear sign that modern capitalism (free market and
formal democracy) is the best possible social, economic and political
order mankind ever invented and set into reality. Alternatives not
only make no sense, they even cannot work. The lack of alternatives
is one reason for the predominance of neoliberal thinking ("pensée
unique") in all parts of the world. The effects of this reasoning
are highly negative. Much of the rights and wrongs TNCs are committing
are justified ideologically by this reasoning. Social movements today
therefore are faced with the necessity of justifying their demands
and requests against the ideologically rigid orthodoxy of neoliberalism.
Intensive competition.
Second, globalisation means more and more intensive competition.
The economic (and therefore also political) relations between countries
and regions have become as dense as never before in history. World
trade during the last decades grew twice as fast as world production.
But production of TNCs 1994 amounted to US$ Bn5500, i.e. more than
world trade (US$ Bn3600). These figures underscore the importance
of TNCs which cannot be indicated by trade figures alone. Whereas
world trade is ruled (regulated in a deregulated world) by the World
Trade Organisation (WTO) according to the principles of "free"
trade, there is no regime for controlling global production although
the figures indicate the importance of global chains of value production
on men and women, on peoples and states.
In the legal framework of the World Trade Organisation, products
are understood as "like products". So far as products are
"like products", governments must deal with them as if foreign
made products are home made products. The way in which the GATT-panel
settled the tuna-dolphin dispute between the USA and Mexico confirmed
this rule. Therefore, according to the international trade rules the
diversities of the production process of "like products"
do not matter. It is not considered important whether the products
have been produced by degrading the environment or by employing child
labour or in "union-free zones" or by violating the rights
of women.
During the trade talks of the Uruguay Round (1986-1994) all attempts
to establish rules for the protection of the environment and of labour
were rejected. Negotiations within the WTO after completion of the
Uruguay Round have only put ecological issues on the agenda for debate.
Social clauses concerning worker rights in trade rules explicitly
have been rejected. The argument was that the ILO existed to deal
with these issues. The problem of the ILO in times of globalisation
however is, that it is based on a "tripartite" arrangement
between governments, employers and workers unions. Governments are
rather weak vis-à-vis global corporations and are following the line
of a "competitive state" promoting its own "competitiveness".
The interest of employers in this arrangement basically is directed
against the establishment of social clauses and the third party, trade
unions, are split over the question between the "North"
and the "South". Consequently, the chances for the establishment
of enforceable rules (on workers and environmental standards) in the
years ahead are very dim.
Predominance of financial markets.
Third, on currency markets the daily turnover is approximately US$
1,570 bn (1996), but nearly 95% of this amount is not related to material
flows such as trade in investment goods. It is used for speculative
objectives. The global financial markets are characterised by extreme
instability which regularly result in financial crises. In the decade
of the 1990s, firstly Europe was hit by a financial crisis (1992/93),
then Mexico (1994/95) and finally Asia (1997/98).
The Mexican and Asian crises provoked in several countries very rapid
currency devaluation of more than 50 per cent. Such devaluation trigger
inflationary pressure, lower contract incomes (real salaries and wages),
and enforce an increase of exports so that newly indebted countries
can service their growing foreign debt. This triggers a brutal process
of redistribution from wage earners to wealth owners and the enterprise
sector. It is no wonder that under these conditions of financial globalisation,
working conditions in many countries are deteriorating. Therefore
it is of utmost importance to find some remedy to discourage speculation;
such as the Tobin Tax which would tax short-term international financial
transactions.
Ecological globalisation.
The fourth point, only mentioned briefly here, is ecological globalisation.
Environmental degradation has a global reach, from the green house
effect to the extinction of species and the destruction of tropical
rain forests in the Amazon and Southeast Asia. With regard to ecological
issues a global structure of "governance" is emerging in
which NGOs have an important part as representatives of citizens in
all parts of the world, as "stakeholders".
I.1.2. The legal dimension
In this emerging environment of legal deregulation, i.e. of a strengthening
of economic actors and a weakening of political institutions and opportunities
for democratic participation, self impose obligation by TNCs to observe
rules laid down in a code are at best only a first step and a temporary
solution. The long-term solution (an international legal framework
protecting the environment and labour by means of enforceable law),
however, is not now possible.
Codes of conduct in an era of globalisation firstly are jeopardised
by abrupt changes in the economic environment, e.g. by a financial
crisis affecting the corporation and enforcing it to reduce costs
brutally. Sometimes this is an excuse, sometimes perhaps not. For
NGOs and trade unions it is not always possible to find the truth
because access to internal data of TNCs normally is very restricted.
Enforceable laws mandating greater transparency can strengthen stakeholders
against these excuses which sometimes prove to be nothing less than
blackmail committed by companies against their workers, suppliers
and customers.
Under enforceable law secondly the single company knows that no other
company is able to exploit the situation in order to improve its position
in global competition. Thirdly, the prerequisite to the establishment,
implementation and monitoring of codes of conduct is the emergence
of a global counterpart of TNCs, in the form of networks of trade
unions, NGOs, and social movements from different parts of the world.
These networks function in very different ways from the rules and
structures set up by international organisations in which governments
of nation states participate. In the system of nation states, participation
of citizens is channelled through a system of representation in order
to legitimate the government's sanctions; such arrangements typically
also apply to international agreements and treaties. A network like
the Clean Clothes Campaign however, promotes participation without
complicated mechanisms of representation directly to the international
or global level. It is focussed on enforcing TNCs to observe and respect
human, citizen, workers and environmental rights about the validity
of which there exists a broad international consensus.
I.2. Transnational Corporations in the Global
Political Economy
The testimonies and other evidence submitted to this session of the
Tribunal underscore the reality and the consequences for workers
and consumers of a fundamental shift in the global political economy
in the last half century. No longer are nation states the only actors,
and in some cases, not even the principal ones in the international
system.
The 15 largest mega-corporations have gross incomes greater than
the gross domestic products of over 120 countries. The 500 largest
companies control 70% of world trade. Even more striking is the rapidly
increasing concentration of economic and political power in corporate
hands, suggesting that this concentration will be even greater in
the future decades. In a single year, 1994, the Global 500 revenues
increased by 9%, far more than any national economy, and their profits
by a colossal 62%. In that same year, these corporations eliminated
262,000 jobs.
Even more striking still is the startling route of capital accumulation
by the top 200 corporations. Measured as a share of world GDP, the
velocity of transnationalisation of capital is stunning: from 17%
in the mid-1960s to 24% in 1982 and over 32% in 1995.
The impact of these trends is beginning to manifest itself in the
international system. The recent creation of the World Trade Organization
and the vast expansion in the reach of GATT to encompass not only
trade in goods (its traditional role) but also intellectual property,
financial and other services, agriculture policy and trade related
investment measures, further insulates global corporations from real
democratic control. Even more audacious is the proposed Multilateral
Agreement on Investment (MAI), which seeks to enshrine complete and
unfettered mobility of capital as a global, legally enforceable private
property right. If MAI becomes a reality, global corporations will
have succeeded in legalizing their impunity from abuses of Human Rights
of workers and communities throughout the world.
But already, control of capital by global corporations is close to
absolute. Their capacity to shift production to lowest cost locations
anywhere in the world, in the continuing race to bottom, is acutely
evident in the garment and sportswear industries. Indeed with the
emergence of "out sourcing" (i.e., the contracting or subcontracting
of production to other parties as the dominant production mode in
this industry), precious little capital investment moves from one
place to another. Corporations claim that their right to contract
and to enforce contractual obligations another private property
right takes precedence over the rights of peoples to work with dignity
and to a safe environment for them and their families.
I.3. New dimensions in the production process
and their effect on working conditions
In the general framework of the transnationalisation of corporations,
delocalisation of companies and the globalisation of the economy,
there are several phenomena which, while not entirely new, are typical
of the current situation, given their development and depth. One of
these concerns the fragmentation of the production process by which
major multinationals maintain direct control of activities at the
beginning and the end of chain (that is to say research and conception
on one hand and the sales and marketing on the other), while conserving
only indirect control on strictly production activities which are
subcontracted to intermediaries.
I.3.1. New division of work
In fact, more and more, certain parts of major companies are concentrating
non material tasks in their own hands while handing over to others
(by subcontracting) direct production tasks. It goes without saying
that the cost of non material tasks is becoming even more important
in the final cost of the product. They are far from being the most
profitable area while the practice of delocalisation to subcontractors
reduces the costs attributable to direct production.
This situation strongly influences the international division of
labour. It is not only the geographic location of investments and
industrial installations which is changing, it is not only inequalities
in salaries and global social conditions which are becoming shocking,
but working relations are becoming fragile, posing a menace for the
safety and, too often, for the dignity of workers. The widening gulf
between the mother company and the workers involved is increasing
the anonymity of working relations. The lack of nearness is accentuating
lack of responsibility. We are seeing a transfer of responsibility
to the middle men. Management is controlled remotely, allowing over
exploitation of the workforce. The door is opened to social dumping,
profiting from inequalities on a global scale.
Recently, the international division of work has been seen to increase
on an unexpected geographical scale. Delocalisation of multinational
companies and the subcontracting of the production process has now
found two new zones of penetration : regions of the South among which
one can count also several newly industrialised countries; and East
European countries. The former, in Asia or Latin America, often designated
as under developed, are countries where pre-capitalist economies often
dominate important areas of society. The second are countries which
wanted to avoid capitalism and considered themselves to be post capitalist.
Both types of country are now being integrated in an increasing manner
into the logic of the global market. The international capitalist
system has absorbed these countries, whether pre-capitalist or post
capitalist, to create new peripheries.
I.3.2. The role of peripheries
In these peripheries, whether the new ones or the old ones (such
as those in the Mediterranean basin), is being seen the growing international
social hierarchy with new roles for regions and agents. One can say
that in this dynamic on a world scale, the proletariat is being delocalised
or is being found more and more in the South and East. The decision
centres stay in hands of the corporations in the North, becoming more
and more concentrated.
The textile and fashion industry, as well as sports equipment, constitute
probably one of the most obvious examples of this phenomenon of fragmentation
of the production process and the associated social effects.
This type of industry is being affected more and more by the effort
of rationalisation and increasing competivity, from product to distribution.
In effect the competition in the mass consumer goods sector is switching
increasingly from product quality to the quality of supply chain.
This is a sector where working conditions are particularly hard (think
of the conditions of sailors in the merchant navy, transport workers
or workers in distribution centres).
The manufacturing segment is losing its importance to the supply
chain. The level of subcontracting in the supply chain is perhaps
even more important that of the production sector. As a consequence,
if we are going to regulate commercial relations between buyer and
subcontractors, it is necessary to take into account the whole production/distribution
process.
The system of subcontracting which allows multinationals to establish
unregulated working conditions, child labour, abusive hours of work,
absence of social security, etc. in countries which do not belong
to the OECD, is affecting today even the older industrial countries
where it is now possible to find situations of near slavery, child
labour and long working days.
I.4. Legal context
Working conditions in the garment industry are generally considered,
at first view, as subject only to the national laws of the country
in which the activity takes place. These national laws are often insufficient.
In certain countries to which the clothing industry is delocalising,
such laws are only embryonic. As a result, working conditions are
often subject to practices conceived and put in place by the transnational
corporations. These companies are more and more drawing up codes of
conduct to regulate working conditions. That is why at first view
working conditions appear subject only to local laws or the good intentions
of the companies.
This way of looking at the situation depends also on the fact that
international law is actually powerless to tackle problems posed by
serious attacks on workers' rights. However, numerous conventions
as well as general principles of international law are applicable
to working conditions in the garment industry controlled by transnational
corporations. This body of international law consists of customary
regulations which are often incorporated in multilateral or regional
conventions or declarations, principally :
- the UN charter
- the universal declaration of human rights of 10 December 1948
- the convention against slavery and forced labour
- the international covenant on civil and political rights of 16
December 1966
- the international covenant on economic, social and cultural rights
of 16 December 1966
- the convention on the elimination of all forms of discrimination
against women of 18 December 1979
- the UN convention on the rights of the child of 20 November 1989
- the ILO conventions.
These rules, even though adopted after long social struggles, were
drawn up by states often reticent about the aspirations of workers.
That is why they are often vague or too general to tackle situations
where the basic rights of workers are not recognised.
Most of these international tools require recognition of rights which
are extremely useful for the protection of workers. But they often
leave the states themselves to draw up appropriate measures to valorise
these rights. In addition, the system of sanctions against unwilling
or weak states or against the companies responsible for the violation
of these rights is extremely fragile or non existent.
In most cases, putting in place of regulations and rights established
requires interpretation for their application on a case-by-case basis
and the intervention of the legislator or government to draw up the
necessary conditions : the reticence of states in these areas places
the power of interpretation in the hands of the contractors, particularly
when there is no competent, independent legal authority. This situation
is even more prejudicial to workers where the states, notably authoritarian
states to whose territory factories have been delocalised by transnational
corporations, have political attitudes which match, for multiple reasons,
the strategies and practices of these companies.
In other words, these states are fully implicated in the shortcomings
of the current national and international legal systems. From a global
point of view, the responsibility of the states and the transnational
corporations is real whatever the difference in level that can be
seen concerning the refusal to recognise workers rights and the repression
of their legitimate demands.
II.Judgment
II.1. Evidence
According to documents based on reliable research and on a great
number of direct witness accounts and after hearing during the session
of the Tribunal from witnesses coming from a number of countries in
Asia, Africa, Latin America and Eastern Europe, we can summarise in
the following way the various denials of justice and violations of
laws that we have noted.
II.1.1. Extended working hours
In all the cases studied, grave violations of labour laws have been
reported in respect of working hours: 60, 70 or even 100 hours work
per week; night work without extra payment; obligatory overtime, often
without notice and on threat of dismissal; non-respect of weekly rest
days.
II.1.2. Insufficient remuneration
Wage below the legal minimum, itself often below subsistence level,
in the country of the subcontracting firms; arbitrary deductions from
the salaries of payments for food, lodging and transportation; delayed
payments of salaries; no extra payment for overtime hours; no compensation
for workplace accidents; wages reduced in case of failure to respect
overstrict production targets; fines for minimal absence from work;
different wage scales for men and women.
II.1.3. Disastrous working conditions
Unhealthy working conditions, created by heat, lack of ventilation,
lack of space; lack of protection, resulting in very high rates of
work accidents; factory doors locked, representing a danger in case
of fire, earthquake, etc. Also a lack of sanitary facilities, especially
for women; an absence of crèches for children.
II.1.4. Violation of labour laws
Absence of work contracts; prohibition of trade unions; denial of
collective conventions; arbitrary dismissals without compensation;
obligatory overtime; non-application of existing local laws on working
hours, work conditions, minimum wage and security; lack of publicity
of codes of conduct when existing; denial of the right to strike.
A particular emphasis must be placed on the existence of child labour,
in workshops or in their homes, often during long hours and in very
unhealthy conditions.
II.1.5. Non respect of human dignity
Absence of privacy in the factories; dismissal of pregnant women;
limits in the use of sanitary facilities; prohibition of marriage
for girls; wages below basic family needs; sexual harassment of women
workers within and outside the factory compound; child labour for
sometimes more than 10 hours a day; physical punishment; locked factories
transformed into kind of jails.
It must be recorded also that strict fiscal conditions are imposed
on the States organising Free Trade Zones: full repatriation of profit,
full tax exemption for imports of raw materials, tools, transportation
means, know how, and also for local taxes, without mentioning the
request for infrastructure to be financed by the local State.
II.1.6. Conclusions
1. Such situations concerning hundreds of thousands of garment and
sportswear workers in the South and in the East are similar to the
social conditions existing in Europe and in North America during the
19th century, but not completely unknown today in those regions. They
affect in particular women, who form the great majority of the workforce
in this industrial sector, adding to existing gender discrimination
a factor of exploitation.
2. That this is practised by firms at the end of the 20th century
means that "savage capitalism" is not a question of time
or space, but of the low capacity of resistance of the working class
concerned. Globalisation adds a new dimension to the phenomenon.
3. Two companies accepted to express their position to the Tribunal.
Their main arguments were : the absence of responsibility for wrong
practices of sub-contracting firms; the adaptation to local social
and wage conditions; the adoption of (unilateral) codes of conduct;
the necessities of competitiveness. Five refused to be present or
to answer, generally because they considered that the Permanent Peoples'
Tribunal was not a fair forum.
4. Some improvements have been noticed after the action of social
movements and specific campaigns, showing that the enterprises did
not take spontaneously such measures, but reacted only under pressure.
Some did not hesitate to delocalise production, once some improvement
had been obtained.
5. The level of profit of the transnational companies studied during
this session of the Tribunal, when known, appears to be very high.
There is no doubt that it is in great part the result of the tremendous
exploitation of the working class, and in particular of women, of
the South and of Eastern Europe. It has also been calculated that
a local worker of a specific peripheral country had to work for 70
years to earn what the top manager of one of those transnational companies
was earning in one hour.
6. The social practices revealed by the hearings of the Tribunal
are so common in the peripheral zones of central capitalism that it
cannot been explained only by the behaviour of one or a few individual
companies. It responds to a logic of profit making, which is at the
basis of the capitalist system. The decreasing profit rate, because
of technological change and wage increases in societies at the centre,
leads the companies to search new margins of profit in the peripheries
and to explore new frontiers.
7. The weakening of the state, all over the world, including the
former or present socialist countries, because of neo-liberal policies
encouraged by the Western powers and by the international financial
organisations or because of corruption, is reducing the capacity of
resistance by lower social groups.
8. The weakening of workers' organisations under the impact of a
growing informalisation of the economy and in many countries of the
South as the result of repression of social movements, is also a negative
factor for the balance of power between such companies and the workers
depending directly or indirectly on their economic policies.
9. The cultural destruction provoked by such economic and social
practices is considerable, resulting in family breakdown, abandonment
of basic solidarity, disorientation of young people, contempt for
human life, individualism and even despair.
10. The Tribunal has come to the conclusion that the seven firms
studied, NIKE, Levi Strauss, H & M, C & A, Adidas, Otto Versand
and Walt Disney, were all guilty not only of violating several dispositions
of labour laws, but also of lack of respect for human dignity, and
thus violation of basic human rights. According to information received
by the Tribunal, such practices are common among the majority of the
firms in the sector. The codes of conduct elaborated by the companies
were never drawn up in collaboration with the local workers. Most
of the time the existence of such codes is not known by the workers
and worst of all, in many instances the codes are not observed. Their
verification remains often theoretical and the so-called independent
bodies in charge of this task are not constituted by those principally
affected, i.e. the workers themselves, and even less, not to say never,
by trade unions. Most of the time there is complete impunity for the
corporations facing such situations.
11. New forms of pressure are thus necessary to transform unbearable
situations. One of them is the Clean Clothes Campaign, which has found
ways of exercising pressure on the companies at home and of mobilising
various social groups and in particular young people. It helps also
to create solidarity with the existing resistance and struggles of
the working class in the periphery. In order to obtain long-range
results, their activities will have to be more and more linked with
the actions of the trade unions, of the consumers' defence groups
and of the popularly oriented NGOs. Such actions cannot be limited
to immediate goals, even if they are necessary, but it should also
envisage the transformation of the existing dominant economic system.
II.2. Enforcement of codes of conduct
Voluntary codes of conduct are by their very nature a form of self-regulation.
As such, they are not generally enforceable in courts of law and may
even have the perverse effect of undermining local labour and environmental
laws.
Codes of conduct may, of course, involve a contractual commitment
between a company and an outside body to observe certain labour and/or
environmental standards, but even in such situations, effective monitoring
is crucial and enforcement of contractual terms is expensive, time
consuming and far beyond the reach of the individual worker whose
right to work with dignity and fair compensation in a safe environment
may have been violated. Codes of conduct, nonetheless, play an important
role in pressurising companies through public opinion to improve the
treatment of workers producing the goods they market.
Even where there are government regulations that are based, for example,
on the International Labour Organisation's core labour standards,
enforcement by workers or their unions, where these exist, remains
difficult. In the United States, it is illegal, under the National
Labor Relations Act, to fire workers for trying to organise a union.
But companies routinely fire such workers, knowing that few workers
can sustain a regulatory adjudication process that is very costly
to the worker and takes several years but is trivial to the company.
A similar situation applies, in the USA, to environmental and occupational
health and safety regulations. The U.S. Department of Labor has 800
inspectors to monitor the provisions of the Fair Labor Standards Act
(which prohibits child labour, for example) in tens of thousands of
work places throughout the USA(1).
The Occupational Safety and Health Administration has only enough
inspectors to visit all the production sites for which it is responsible
for monitoring every 80 years. And when fines are imposed for violations
of environment and labour laws, they are often so small that it is
cheaper for the company to pay the fine rather than correct the condition.
If these kinds of problems of enforcement exist in the USA, they
will be unlikely to be any less in many of the countries to which
production in the garment and sportswear industry has shifted in recent
years. But enforcement can only occur when there is effective monitoring
of working conditions and herein arise more problems for workers and
for consumers who do not want to buy goods produced by workers who
are not treated fairly and compensated adequately.
Independent monitoring is a minimum condition for meaningful codes
of conduct. But who does the monitoring is crucial. Companies often
turn to for-profit companies such as accounting firms or other agencies
which do not have the confidence of the workers. Even not-for-profit
organisations which earn substantial fees from making "social
audits" of companies may not have the trust of workers. Some
advocates of codes of conduct (specifically in USA) as a consequence
urge that monitoring be undertaken by local human rights or religious
organisations which are trusted by workers.
The central goal of the labour rights movement must be the empowerment
of workers. This means some form of worker organisation since it is
almost impossible for single workers to defend their rights when violated
by aggressive and unscrupulous employers. Workers themselves are their
own best advocates.
But notwithstanding these difficulties with monitoring and enforcement,
codes of conduct represent an important opening wedge in the struggle
for universal acceptance of worker rights in a healthy workplace.
By defining standards for child labour, working hours, overtime and
other working conditions in concrete terms, these codes give us precise
benchmarks by which to assess the degree to which companies are actually
fulfilling their rhetoric about respecting human rights and the environment.
Ultimately, however, active participation of workers and their communities
in investment and contracting decisions by corporations is the only
certain way that codes of conduct can be effectively monitored or
enforced. Otherwise there is nothing to prevent these corporations
from taking their production elsewhere. In the meanwhile, efforts
by social movements like the Clean Clothes Campaign to inform consumers
about the conditions under which goods they are buying are produced
and to encourage them to make responsible choices play a vital role
in the struggle for worker, consumers and environmental rights.
Codes of conduct are an important tool in this struggle. Here are
three steps to enhance their impact:
1. Self- imposed codes by companies should be transformed as quickly
as possible into agreements with unions, consumer organisations or
other popular bodies.
2. An "independent" formula should be put in place to make
it possible to follow more closely, if not exercise control over,
the ways companies treat their workers.
3. We must work toward national and international juridical standards
that encompass the principles of these codes, including not only the
rights of workers but also the rights of consumers and practices such
as social labelling.
II.3. Consumer's Rights
The question raised before the Tribunal can be split into two parts.
a- Have consumers, as individuals and as a collective entity, the
right to be informed about the conditions of production of what they
buy?
b- What are, if any, the legal tools which are available to affirm
such a right, and to enforce the duties of the producers to provide
honest information?
Three general remarks are useful in providing a framework for the
exploration of answers to these questions:
1. It is clear that the control and the intensive use of information
is a central component of the strategies of the transnational corporations,
particularly in the garment industry. The imposition of consumption
patterns is pursued, using all available advertising techniques, which
are targeted specifically at the young. They are enticed by myth-idols
which favour the identification with and the illusion of sharing their
images and power by adopting the same clothing appearance. Any intervention
intending to modify the strong cultural dependence which is created
with these mechanisms should take into account that only strategies
with a broader cultural scope can possibly be able to influence consumption
patterns.
2. The right to information is a key component in the liberal conception
of the world and finds its principal expression and condition in the
free competition of market forces. A well informed consumer is seen
as a decisive factor in assuring the prevalence of one company over
others. The adaptive capacity of the liberal model is well known:
it is expected that it will be able to incorporate and use to its
own advantage almost any request for adjustment, provided it does
not adversely affect the core of its interests. If we consider its
historical development, the protection of consumers has been given
priority every time it coincided with the protection and expansion
of the market. Such a utilitarian vision can be seen as the background
to the development of a market consumerism whose principal aim is
to inform consumers on the prices and quality of the product.
3. Over the last ten years, market consumerism has evolved substantially
- mainly through the influence of the ecological movement, the exigencies
of protecting health rights, and worries about the quality of food
which has also faced recently the question of its genetically engineered
sources. Beyond action aimed at assuring quality control, consumers'
associations are more directly concerned with the effective protection
of their individual and collective interests, and participation in
decisions affecting their choices as consumers.
The present situation may be summarised as follows:
1. the right to information as a fundamental consumer right is recognised
as such by much European and non-European state legislation;
2. this right implies that consumers must have adequate information
on the characteristics of the product which may influence consumer
consent and choice;
3. it is now accepted that this notion includes not only the intrinsic
(e.g. price, material composition, etc.) but also the extrinsic (e.g.
impact on the environment, on health and on solidarity concerns) characteristics
of the product;
4. the detailed information on the conditions of production must
be considered among these "essential characteristics" which
are able to determine the consent of the consumer.
The consequences of this situation are far reaching:
1. it is realistic to put pressure on legislators so that information
on the conditions of production becomes mandatory;
2. it is conceivable that consumers, as individuals or associations,
could initiate a legal action against a firm which has adopted a code
of conduct, expressed also with a social label, and is not ready to
be fully accountable with respect to the conditions of production,
on the basis of which its publicity is found to be misleading;
3. it is possible to apply the notion of "good faith" (long
a tradition in the regulation of commercial practices) to the respect
of peremptory norms (Cour de Cassation belge, arrêt du 2 mai 1985,
Pas, 1985, I, 1081) such as compliance with urban planning regulations;
4. if such violation can be considered a practice against "good
faith", a fortiori this interpretation is applicable
to the violation of fundamental social rights, which in the international
community represent an accepted minimum standard;
5. consumers' associations can use legal actions aiming at affirming
the legally binding character of social standards in the area of consumption
(see the lawsuit filed against Nike at San Francisco Superior Court
for misrepresenting working conditions in Asian factories, thus violating
California fair business laws).
While insufficient to provide an answer to the general challenges
outlined above, the use of legal action may undoubtedly represent
an important integration of the strategy of consumers' movements and
campaigns by increasing public awareness and by promoting further
development of national and international jurisdictions.
II.4. The violations of international law in
the framework of working conditions in the garment industry
Whatever the relative defects in the content and putting in place
of rules of international law, violation of workers' rights and their
situation in the factories and production units of transnational corporations
and of their subcontractors should and must be judged under existing
international law, such as that provided by conventions ratified by
substantial number of states and by generally accepted international
rules.
Conventional international law, notably the International Covenant
on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (Covenant UN, 1966) and the
conventions and standards drawn up under the guidance of the ILO,
particularly :
- No. 138 (1973) prohibiting work by children under 15
- Nos. 87 (1948) & 98 (1949) on the freedom for workers to organise
and the right to collective bargaining, as well as No 135 (1971),
on the guarantee of worker representation
- Nos. 26 (1928) and 131 (1970) on the setting of a minimum salary
for all workers
- No. 47 (1935) on the limitation of the working week to 40 hours
- Nos. 52 (1936) and 132 (1972) on paid annual holidays
- No. 100 (1951) on the non discrimination in salaries between men
and women and No 111 (1958) on the non discrimination in employment
for reasons of gender,
should be accepted as such by all states which have ratified these
instruments.
However, the working conditions imposed on employees by transnational
corporations or their subcontractors are in violation of several articles
of these conventions. The panorama of facts established by the Tribunal
demonstrates effectively multiple violations of these conventions.
The Tribunal notes serious attacks to the right of children not to
work under the age of 15 years, recognised by the UN Convention on
the right of the child (1989) and in the ILO Convention 138 (1973).
The Tribunal notes the practice of discrimination against the women
in violation of article 7.a,1 of the Covenant UN (1966) and the ILO
Convention 100 (1951) and 111 (1958).
The Tribunal notes the violation of article 7 of the Covenant UN
(1966) according to which the workers have the right to a "fair
and favourable working condition and especially a fair salary",
and the violation of the right to minimum wage established by the
States of the sub-contractors, according to the ILO Conventions 26
(1928) and 131 (1970).
The Tribunal notes that imposition of very long working hours and
no paid holidays is a serious violation of the article 7 of the Covenant
UN (1966), which provides the right to "rest, leisure, reasonable
limitation of working hours, regular paid holidays", and
of the ILO Conventions 47 (1935), 52 (1936) and 132 (1972).
The Tribunal notes equally the violation of article 7 of the Covenant
on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights on the right to a decent existence
for workers and their families (article 7.a,2), to decent conditions
of hygiene and safety (article 7.b).
The Tribunal notes also serious violations of the right of workers
to strike and to organise in several factories or production units
of transnational corporations and their subcontractors. This situation
constitutes a characteristic violation of standards established by
the ILO in the Conventions 87 (1948) and 98 (1949) and article 8 of
the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights
which "recognise union rights and the right to strike."
While these rights are recognised in the framework of laws which regulate
employers, such laws cannot in the spirit or letter of the covenant
just cited permit the suppression of strikes or unions. This is however
the case in a large number of workshops in the apparel industry.
Alongside these conventions should be noted the general rules and
principles of international law.
First of all, it is worth emphasising that human rights, including
those articulated by most international agreements have a universal
dimension which cannot be ignored even by those states which have
not ratified them. The universal dimension of human rights means that
everybody has these rights and can insist on their recognition by
states and the entities which depend on them. The recognition of the
universal dimension of human rights places a responsibility for international
solidarity to stop situations which seriously abuse fundamental rights
such as those that the Tribunal has noted in the production units
and workshops of transnational corporations or the subcontractors
in the garment and sportswear industry.
The general rules are based on the notion of human dignity, the respect
of which is today considered an essential principle "of law,
justice and peace".
It is in this view that the UN charter obliges states to promote
the universal and effective respect of rights and the liberty of all
people.
As is now examined in several laws, the international dimension of
human rights must lead to the incrimination of the perpetrators of
violations of fundamental rights and serious abuses of human dignity
not only in the territories where the abuses are committed but in
the territories of all states.
As confirmed in the preamble to the two international covenants on
16 December 1966 "in compliance with the principals spelt out
in the UN charter, the respect of the dignity inherent in all members
of the human family and of their equal and inalienable rights constitutes
the foundation of liberty, justice and peace in the world. In conformity
with the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the ideal of the human
person free, enjoying civil and political liberties and freedom from
fear and misery, can only be realised if the conditions are created
to allow each person to enjoy these civil and political rights as
well as economic, social and cultural rights."
III.Verdict
The Tribunal
1- Confirms the verdicts already issued in the Berlin
(1988) and Madrid (1994) sessions on the World Bank and International
Monetary Fund, the ad hoc Padova-Venezia session (1997) on
international law; the Bogotá session (1991) on impunity
from Crimes against Humanity, the Bhopal (1992) and London
(1994) sessions on industry and environmental hazards, and the Naples
(1995) session on the rights of the child, that human dignity and
universal social justice are the underlying principles on which the
rights of peoples are based.
2- Recognizes the weakening of trade unions and nation states
and the increasing concentration of power in the hands of transnational
corporations as shaping the context for worker and consumer rights
in the garment and sportswear industry with grave apprehension for
the future of the rights of people, but at the same time assents the
continuing obligation of states to protect those rights.
3- Condemns widespread violations of the rights of workers
in the garment and sportswear industry for freedom of association,
collective bargaining, equal pay for equal work, a living wage, treatment
with dignity, and a healthy and safe workplace as set-forth in the
ILO conventions, Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the Universal
Declaration of the Rights of Peoples and other international agreements.
4- Condemns the exploitation, workplace discrimination and
lack of effective measures to prevent sexual harassment of women who
constitute 80 per cent of the apparel industry workforce.
5- Condemns the use of child labour which is forbidden in
the international agreements already noted; as well as the Convention
on the Rights of the Child and which continue in the garment and sportswear
industry despite denials by leading manufacturers and distributors.
6- Condemns as well the use of forced labour which is prohibited
under ILO Convention n. 29 and other international measures but which
persists in the apparel industry according to evidence presented to
the Tribunal.
7- Condemns the use of Codes of Conduct by leading apparel
companies to cover up actual working conditions in the industry and
mislead consumers and to undermine national laws and regulation that
are more stringent than industry-formulated codes.
8- Condemns the widespread use of contractors and subcontractors
by these same companies to evade responsibility for the conditions
under which goods they market are made and to exacerbate job insecurity
among apparel company workers.
9- Demands that consumers of garments and sportswear be fully
and accurately informed about the conditions under which goods they
purchase are made.
10- Encourages consumers and human rights movements to seek
legal sanctions against and use other form of pressure on apparel
companies to make them stop abusing the workers who produce the goods
they market.
11- Commends efforts to formulate and implement codes of conduct
in the apparel industry with meaningful and just standards for treatment
of workers and to establish effective monitoring and enforcement mechanisms
which workers can trust and which provide prompt and fair redress
when codes of conduct are violated.
IV.Perspectives for the future
IV.1. A general view
The Permanent Peoples' Tribunal, having examined the request concerning
practices in the garment industry, considers itself competent to consider
the case which has been submitted to it. In effect, it was called
upon to pronounce on a subject arising from international relationships
and on a matter concerning human rights and the rights of people.
But the position taken by the Tribunal is not in isolation. On the
contrary, it is part of the vast movement implicating at the same
time the struggle of many workers in several Southern continents and
the permanent mobilisation of social forces in Europe, North America,
Australia and Japan as well as initiatives taken in the South. The
encounter and confrontation with major companies is characteristic
of this process, which involves workers' unions, NGOs, groups fighting
for women's rights and groups defending consumers' rights. The dynamic
of the action which has been taken and the hope represented by an
initiative such as the Clean Clothes Campaign prove that it is possible
to bring about change.
The entire movement possesses a critical social role which it must
pursue. Even though the dominant ideology presents our epoch as have
reached an ideal phase, defined by the combination of a representative
democracy and a market economy, the Tribunal emphasises the importance
of taking a discriminating position and the desire for social changes,
against any type of fatalism on one hand and of uncritical conformism
on the other.
How is it possible to be uncritical when one hears, as we have during
these two days, the voice of suffering of hundreds of thousands of
workers and the feeling of exclusion of so many people around the
world who are enduring the consequences of subcontracting in the garment
industry? In the face of these realities, we cannot tolerate the impunity
of corporations involved with persistent violations of human rights
and rights of workers. It is this which provides an indispensable
character to ethical protests, forms of solidarity, drawing up of
codes of conduct and the use of new legal tools.
The Tribunal is particularly sensitive to the latter area. It sees
the necessity to pursue efforts to obtain the largest possible collective
consensus, a real basis of new international law which can only come
from continuous development. The power of public opinion is obviously
a decisive factor in driving such action.
However, all these initiatives should not be content only with a
simple moralisation of the system of exploitation that capitalism
signifies. In effect, criticism and the elimination of the most flagrant
abuse then contributes to the creation of better conditions for long-term
reproduction. It is thus necessary to add to immediate action, concrete
negotiations and participation in various campaigns, a deeper reflection
on the causes of the phenomena and long-term action to transform the
economic system itself.
In the tissue of solidarity, it is therefore necessary to overcome
particularities and to adopt new cultural frameworks. On the basis
of a global macro ethic, of which one of the pillars is the body of
principles and standards of human, workers and people's rights, the
joint struggles of North, South and East will succeed in changing
society.
IV.2. Concrete proposals
For future concrete actions the Tribunal proposes :
1) The elaboration of codes of conduct, unique to every branch of
industry, elaborated with representatives of the workers and monitored
by independent bodies including a participation of worker's organisations
and of the respective states. The code of conduct prepared by the
CCC constitutes one basis for such initiatives and could lead to new
international legislation. It could help also provide the basis for
cases to be presented to existing international jurisdictions, such
as the United Nations Human Rights Commission, or regional human rights
bodies.
2) The collaboration of the CCC, trade unions, consumers' groups,
women's and human rights organisations and popularly oriented NGOs
to strengthen their power in addressing the economic and social behaviour
of transnational companies. Web sites to monitor TNCs and networks
of information, study and action, such as the World Forum of Alternatives
and The Other Economic Summit (TOES), should be encouraged and linked
more effectively.
3) The reinforcement of public institutions (states and international
organisations) as regulators of economic practices and as the source
of effective labour legislation. Strengthened legal regimes should
allow states to prevent or stop harmful behaviour of their citizens
and corporate entities inside their territories and all over the world.
This would also be a contribution to the development of democratic
values
4) Continuation of the process of critical scrutiny of the role of
transnational corporations in the international political economy
at the next session of the Tribunal on global corporations and human
rights in Warwick (UK) at the end of 1998. This session of the Tribunal
will seek to spell out effective procedures to ensure accountability
of networks of capital and technology; examine claims of responsive
corporate governance; propose reformulation of principles of international
law to apply human rights standards to global corporations; and devise
a human right to law for the people for effective prevention of injury
and suffering and for speedy redress.
5) The globalisation of resistance to and the search for alternatives,
in order to accelerate the pressures for change and go beyond immediate
objectives and to work for long-term transformations in the collective
organisation of political and economic processes, in social relations
and in cultural expressions.
1 Nordstrom, by way of illustration
of the magnitude of the problem, has 60,000 production sites worldwide.
