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The Maquila Solidarity Network (MSN) is a labour and women's rights organization that supports the efforts of workers in global supply chains to win improved wages and working conditions and a better quality of life. ( More)
Shortly after a new union was formed last September in Haiti's growing apparel manufacturing sector, six of the seven workers who serve on the union's executive committee were fired or forced to resign by the factories where they worked. But we're pleased to report that thanks to concerted efforts by Haitian and international labour rights groups, all but one of the workers have now been reinstated and are back at work.
Just over a year ago a fire at That's It Sportswear garment factory in Bangladesh caused the death of 29 workers, and injured a number of others, eleven of them seriously. Sadly, in December 2011 two more workers perished and over fifty were injured in a stampede triggered by panic after a boiler explosion at the Bangladesh factory Eurotex. There is an urgent need to establish a credible programme to address the serious safety issues that remain endemic in the readymade garment industry.
In this issue:
Mexican human rights defenders threatened for supporting laid-off workers; Haiti's apparel industry jobs are welcome, but what about the right to form unions?; Advances and setbacks: Advances in worker rights are possible even in this economic climate; Are sportswear brands committing to ending precarious work?; High-fashion brands like Versace are joining the international ban on sandblasting.
Download Update 16.3 here.
Can CSR ratings help improve labour practices in global supply chains?, a new paper published by the Maquila Solidarity Network (MSN) and the Project on Organizing, Development, Education and Research (PODER), examines the potential of rating systems to drive improvements in supply chain labour practices. Through interviews with CSR experts, representatives from companies like Levi's, Gap and others that have been rated on supply chain labour issues, labour rights advocacy groups, and rating system developers, the paper highlights some key challenges facing rating systems and how some rating systems have tried to overcome, or at least minimize, those challenges.
Officially, special economic zones were created as a way to provide jobs for Filipinos by using tax exemptions and other incentives to encourage foreign investors to invest in the Philippines. Unfortunately experience shows that foreign investors and the government are the only ones to benefit from these economic zones, not the workers.
In this period of global economic instability, the lives of workers employed in global supply chains are becoming more and more insecure. Not only are workers confronted on a daily basis with the very real possibility that their factories will be closed as production is shifted to other countries and regions with lower labour costs, they are also facing changing employment relationships in their own countries that are making their working lives more precarious.
Family members react - May 2011
Students & Scholars Against Corporate Misbehaviour (SACOM) has released a statement blaming a May 20 explosion at Foxconn's Ipad plant on the company, which it says is putting productivity over worker safety. The blast, which killed two workers and injured 16, could have been prevented, says SACOM. The group points to an early May report in which it raised issues with dangerous aluminum dust in the factory's polishing department where the blast occurred.
Bangladesh is demonstrating its strong ties and deepening friendship with Canada with a visit this week from Bangladeshi Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina. But, as those ties grow stronger, it's time for Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper to raise growing international concerns about the country's harsh treatment of labour and human rights advocates, and the dangerous and unacceptable working conditions that plague the country's garment industry.
Read MSN's opinion piece "PM should speak up for Bangladeshi workers" on the Toronto Star website
Thanks to strong national and international opposition, proposed labour law reforms that would severely erode workers' rights in Mexico have been delayed. The independent trade union movement in Mexico has been denouncing proposed labour law reforms that would, amongst other things, encourage even more precarious work arrangements, uphold the use of "protection contracts" and enable further weakening of unions and denial of legal entitlements through the use of outsourcing, subcontracting, and temporary contracts for young workers.
A long and dramatic struggle at the Johnson Controls Interiors (JCI) factory in Puebla, Mexico, has finally resulted in the expulsion of a sham "protection union" and the signing of a real collective bargaining agreement with Mexico's mineworkers' union (SNTMMSSRM or Los Mineros). The new JCI agreement, signed April 8, 2011, includes a 7.5% wage increase and better benefits for the 800 workers at the factory
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