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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…
When ‘business as usual’ costs lives: workers in Pakistan call for a binding safety agreement
By Christie Miedema and Liana Foxvog – In Karachi, Pakistan, 11 September 2012 is ingrained into people’s minds as the day on which over 250 people did not return home to their families after a long day of work. A fire in the Ali Enterprises garment factory had spread rapidly, fed by the bales of finished product…
Lesotho garment workers struck landmark deals to tackle gender-based violence. Here’s how it happened.
By Rola Abimourched, Libakiso Matlho, Thusoana Ntlama & Robin Runge – Gender-based violence and harassment, including sexual harassment in the world of work, are among the most pervasive human rights violations and most effective tools at preventing gender equality. Female garment workers—who are the majority of the global garment workforce—are systematically targeted and experience the…
Landmark Agreements to Combat Gender-based Violence and Harassment in Lesotho’s Garment Industry
Last Thursday marked the announcement of a set of landmark agreements among leading apparel brands, a coalition of labor unions and women’s rights advocates, and a major apparel supplier to combat gender-based violence and harassment in Lesotho’s garment sector. These enforceable agreements—with Levi Strauss & Co., The Children’s Place, and Kontoor Brands—link the each of…
Leading apparel brands, trade unions, and women’s rights organizations sign binding agreements to combat gender-based violence and harassment at key supplier’s factories in Lesotho
Maseru, Lesotho; Washington, D.C. (August 15, 2019): Civil society groups, an international apparel manufacturer, and three global brands have agreed to launch a comprehensive pilot program intended to prevent gender-based violence and harassment (GBVH) in garment factories in Lesotho employing more than 10,000 workers. Five Lesotho-based trade unions and women’s rights organizations, as well as…
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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…