News
Covid-19 Tracker: Updates and Analysis
The WRC is tracking which brands and retailers are paying for goods that are finished or in-production and which are breaking their commitments, with devastating consequences for workers in their supply chains. Our tracker now also features a section for Updates and Analysis. Photo credit: REUTERS/Mohammad Ponir Hossain
Two crises, one flawed supply chain model: How the imbalance of power in global supply chains harms workers
On April 24, 2013, the Rana Plaza factory collapse claimed the lives of 1,137 garment workers in Bangladesh and injured thousands more. The tragedy, which was the deadliest disaster in a manufacturing facility in human history, put a spotlight on the grossly unsafe labor conditions plaguing Bangladesh’s garment sector and catalyzed fundamental reform. The international…
Live-blog: How the Coronavirus affects garment workers in supply chains
This live-blog by the Clean Clothes Campaign aims to collect daily information about how the new Coronavirus COVID-19 is affecting garment workers’ rights in supply chains around the world. It will be updated as new information comes in from media and the Clean Clothes Campaign global network. Information is posted as it comes in from…
COVID-19 – time for governments, brands and employers to protect supply chain and precarious workers from hardship and infection
By Sharan Burrow, General Secretary of the ITUC & Phil Bloomer, Executive Director of Business & Human Rights Resource Centre – Steps should be taken to protect workers and business, write Sharan Burrow and Phil Bloomer. As the economic and human rights impacts of the COVID-19 outbreak come into view, we are again seeing supply…
Combatting Forced Labor and Enforcing Workers’ Rights Using the Tariff Act
By the International Labor Rights Forum – The U.S. has one of the most powerful tools for preventing the import of goods made by forced labor: the Tariff Act. Yet, Section 307 of the Tariff Act is rarely enforced. In its new report released today – “Combatting Forced Labor and Enforcing Workers’ Rights Using the…
Challenging the Status Quo: Helping Workers Protect their Associational Rights in Myanmar
Freedom of association is a fundamental and critical right allowing workers to collectively demand better working conditions. Yet factory management around the world often deny workers this right, illegally terminating union leaders, and sometimes employing violence to quell union organizing. Buyers at the top of the supply chain generally fail to detect such violations or…
Surge in Garment Industry Transparency: Laws Needed to Ensure Companies Adopt Human Rights Practices
(New York, December 18, 2019) – Clothing and footwear brands and retailers have dramatically increased their disclosure of information about their supply chains in the past three years, a coalition of unions, human rights groups, and labor rights advocates said in a joint report released today. In 2016, the coalition created the Transparency Pledge, a…
Despite progress gender-based violence and harassment is still a reality for global garment workers
By Rola Abimourched – Today marks the end of this year’s “16 Days of Activism against Gender-based Violence” campaign. Since its inception in the 1990s, feminist organisations, activists, and courageous individuals have tirelessly foregrounded women’s experiences of violence in their homes, communities, and workplaces. Beyond raising awareness, organisations and individuals have used these sixteen days…
Largest Sum Ever: WRC recovers US$4.5 Million in unpaid severance
In the fall of 2019, two thousand Indonesian workers received what the WRC believes to be the largest amount workers have won in a single case of illegally denied severance. On July 2, 2018, the management of PT Kahoindah Citragarment (Kahoindah), an Indonesian garment factory owned by the Korean firm Hojeon LLC, had announced that…
WRC in the Media
Survey finds 40% of fashion brands have not paid suppliers
just-style
More brands named for failing on order commitments
just-style
Bangladesh Threatens To Ban These UK Brands, Escalating Battle To Get Factories Paid
Forbes
Some garment factory workers receive wages thanks to international pressure
The Hindu
BGMEA engaging rights groups to ensure buyers pay local suppliers
The Daily Star
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Email: media@workersrights.org
More Brands Paying for Orders, but Many Have yet to Follow Suit
The WRC has been working for the last two months to address the most urgent challenge facing garment workers: the decision of many leading apparel brands and retailers, at the outset of the Covid-19 crisis, to retroactively cancel apparel orders that suppliers and workers had already produced. This sudden withdrawal of billions of dollars in contractually…