Newsletter of the Clean Clothes Campaign - Autumn 2010

This issue: Protests for higher wages, expansion of the CCC network, interview with Jasna Petrovic and more...

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Editorial:

In despair because of their continuing low wages and under pressure of increasing prices for staple foods, workers across Asia have taken to the streets and the last months have seen massive demonstrations and strikes. In China, Bangladesh, Birma, Cambodia, and other countries there have been protests against the terrible conditions under which people are forced to work, many of the demands focusing on higher wages.

The response from those in power to these actions has been harsh. Demonstrations were attached, workers were beaten and union leaders were arrested and molested in jail. Workers and their organisations have refused to be silenced, however, and the protests have forced governments to respond. As a result of the actions minimum wages were increased substantially in Bangladesh and in parts of China.

A group of Thai garment workers that was dismissed from a Triumph factory last year decided to take matters into their own hands and started a workplace. Their Try Arm factory joins other worker cooperatives like Dignity Returns in Thailand and the Argentinian La Alameda in showing that producing garments without exploitation is possible.

Despite some changes for the better, major labour rights violations persist in the global garment industry. The negative effects of the economic crisis bear down heavily on workers, increasing their vulnerable and insecure position in the supply chain. As elsewhere, workers rights are under pressure in Croatia where a new labour code proposed by the government threatened to undermine the process of collective bargaining and deny workers some of their rights. In this case too, unions took action and succeeded in collecting so many signatures of people opposing the proposed code that the Croatian government was forced to retract it. The question is what the government will do next.

Working together on workers' rights remains both necessary and effective, and the Clean Clothes Campaign continues to be dedicated to facilitating international cooperation on these issues. With the expansion of our European network with new national coalitions in three more countries, CCC will have more capacity to carry out its task. We also forge ever more links with our growing global partner network. The Clean Clothes Campaign International Forum, taking place in November 2010 in Turkey, will bring together 250 labour rights activists and is meant to give us the opportunity to exchange, discuss, plan, and build bridges. This way the CCC network will be strengthened further, enabling us to work together better to reach our common aim of improving working conditions in the global garment industry.

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