Labor is Not a Commodity

ILRF Statement on US Tax Breaks for Bangladeshi Businesses

The International Labor Rights Forum (ILRF) calls on the United States Trade Representative (USTR) to end tax breaks for Bangladeshi business and instead use the resources to invest in a brighter future for Bangladeshi workers. For more than five years, the USTR has been continuing to review whether Bangladesh business should benefit from tax breaks granted under the Generalized System of Preferences (GSP) trade program in what has been an unsuccessful effort to convince the Government of Bangladesh to end labor abuses in the garment industry and to hold its business community accountable for the abuses.

Unfortunately, failing to take action on the AFL-CIO’s long-standing petition to end GSP benefits, even in the face of phenomenal, unprecedented deaths of Bangladeshi garment workers, the US government has been sending the wrong signal to the Bangladeshi government and business community. Since the petition was filed in 2007, the Bangladeshi government has failed to take any serious action to ensure workers’ rights to organize and bargain collectively or to hold accountable those responsible for the murder of Aminul Islam and the deaths of thousands of garment workers who have lost their lives in preventable fires and building collapses while producing goods for US consumers.

Instead of taking serious action to address the abuses in response to the US government review, the Bangladeshi government has denied the severity of the violations on record to the USTR and continued business as usual by supporting policies that deny workers their fundamental rights.  At the same time, the Government of Bangladesh redoubled efforts to lobby key US government officials to minimize the issues and audaciously request even more tax breaks for its businesses.

In the wake of the Rana Plaza tragedy which claimed the lives of more than 1,100 garment workers who had been denied their rights to refuse dangerous work and organize for safe and decent working conditions, the US government must change course by revoking the GSP tax breaks designed to reward the Bangladesh government and businesses for improving the lives of workers.

However, revoking tax breaks is not enough. The USTR should also encourage support for the Accord on Fire and Building Safety in Bangladesh. By endorsing the Accord, and working with US companies to sign and implement its provisions, US trade officials will be making a significant contribution to the growth of a long-term and, most importantly, sustainable trading partnership with Bangladesh that will benefit both Bangladeshi workers and US consumers.  More specifically, the Accord is an agreement between business and trade unions; thus support for the Accord is a clear way for the USTR to indicate its expectations that Bangladesh improve its laws and labor justice system to ensure workers’ ability to form and join trade unions and to bargain collectively.

Whether or not Obama administration officials can ultimately convince more US companies to formally commit to investing in Bangladesh for the long-term, moving US companies away from low-road buying policies to join their European counterparts as market leaders, they should work with Congress to find ways to invest the savings accrued from ending the tax breaks to Bangladesh to support Bangladeshi workers.  Those savings can provide financial support for the victims of the disasters at Tazreen Fashions and Rana Plaza and ensure the successful implementation of the Bangladesh Safety Accord.

Historic Safety Accord Holds Companies Responsible for Contractors’ Working Conditions—Most U.S. Companies Lagging

By Bjorn Claeson

Get ready to hear more about the Accord on Fire and Building Safety in Bangladesh.  For the first time since apparel brands and retailers started to contract production overseas, a sizable group of major apparel companies have accepted legal responsibility for workers’ safety in contractor factories.

The Accord, a binding and enforceable agreement between unions and so far 40 major apparel brands and retailers, is a radical departure from the voluntary, unenforceable and ineffective codes of conduct and social compliance programs companies have developed over the last 20 years.

The record for corporate voluntary social compliance programs has been dismal, and this year more so than ever. In the last eight months, more than 1,500 workers in Bangladesh and Pakistan have suffocated, burned, and been crushed to death making the most ordinary consumer good: clothing.  Every worker who died made clothing for export, sold mostly by well-known brands and retailers.  These companies assured consumers the clothing was made ethically, the factories audited for compliance and certified to be safe with decent working conditions. Yet, the factories were illegal, lacked building permits, and violated basic safety standards.

By contrast, the Accord requires companies to participate in and fund a program of independent safety inspections, remediation, and worker safety trainings with the involvement of trade unions.  They must maintain commercial terms that enable factories to maintain safe workplaces and finance repairs.  A Steering Committee consisting of an equal number of representatives of trade unions and companies and one representative of the International Labor Organization is empowered to decide disputes between the signatory parties.  The parties may appeal Steering Committee decisions to an Arbitrator, whose decision is final and enforceable in a court of law.

Thus far only two U.S. companies have signed the Accord: PVH Corporation, parent company of Calvin Klein and Tommy Hilfiger (the first company to commit to the agreement in March of 2012), and Abercrombie & Fitch.  Gap has said it will not sign the agreement because it is enforceable in courts.  Walmart has announced it will expand its own private, non-binding social auditing efforts with auditing giant, Bureau Veritas, rather than sign the Accord.  The National Retail Federation said the Accord was a narrow “special interest” initiative and joined the American Apparel and Footwear Association in announcing another non-binding program that excludes unions and labor groups. That initiative, which reportedly includes JC Penney, Sears, and Macy’s, has not yet been made public.

The Accord is historic in requiring companies to take legal and financial responsibility for worker safety in contract factories and to work with unions as equal partners.  In the United States, working conditions in the apparel industry improved significantly when buyers, contractors, and unions negotiated  “jobber agreements” that recognized that the lead firm in the industry, the jobber, or “buyer” in today’s terminology, was responsible for wages and working conditions at the bottom of the chain.  The Accord represents an opportunity to make similar advances for garment workers worldwide.  It should be fully implemented in Bangladesh and expanded to other countries where garment workers work in unsafe conditions. Learn more and take action here: laborrights.org/safety.

Bjorn Skorpen Claeson is Senior Policy Analyst with the International Labor Rights Forum, Executive Director of the Sweatfree Purchaing Consortium, and cofounder of SweatFree Communities.

Hearts Broken, Standing Up to Injustice

By Hanna Claeson

The New York Times says that “survivors [of the factory collapse] described a sensation akin to being in an earthquake: hearing a loud and terrifying cracking sound; feeling the concrete factory floor roll beneath their feet; and watching concrete beams and pillars collapse as the eight-story building suddenly seemed to implode.”[1]

On Wednesday, April 24^th, 2013, the global garment industry took another 230 lives in Bangladesh. [2] They share the fate of the 112 workers that died in a fire at Tazreen Factory last November and nearly 900 others. A total of 1,230 deaths is the number that you come up with when you sum various news accounts of casualties due to garment factory fires and collapses in Bangladesh.[3] Of course, they also share the fate of countless of others, whose lost lives the media forgot to write about.

In Bangladesh, at least 1,230 hearts have stopped beating only because factories and the brands[4] that depend on them think that it is ok to make their employees sew clothes in ticking time bombs.

These 1,230 stopped hearts left thousands and thousands more stomachs empty. Because if you accept Bangladesh’s minimum wage of $37 a month[5] to risk your life in one of those factories, it is not because you are crazy. It is because your family needs it so much that you have little other choice.

Maybe it is self evident, but these 1,230 hearts also did what all hearts do. They loved and were loved.

And you can be certain that these 1,230 stopped hearts left at least another 2,460 hearts broken. This is an extremely modest estimate, based on an admittedly non-scientific assumption, that everyone who died was loved by at least two other people.

The garment industry is maybe more profitable than investment in foreign wars. No purchase of high-cost weapons is necessary: just sewing machines, faulty wires, run down buildings and the belief that one brown life is tradable for the underwear you put on in the morning.

And instead of debating morality, we protect ourselves from the cold by wrapping ourselves in massacres. We get ready to make love by dressing in the products of death traps. 

In Bangladesh alone, garment factories and brands have stopped or irreparably damaged at least 3,690 hearts. They care little enough about human life to think it is ok to pay workers far below a living wage to die making their clothes. Those factories and brands are betting that the people that buy their clothes do not care enough either. 

So far they have been right. But I’d bet that they are underestimating us. I know they are underestimating our power to revolt and stand up to injustices.

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[1] http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/26/world/asia/bangladeshi-collapse-kills-many-garment-workers.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0

[2]http://www.thestar.com/news/world/2013/04/25/bangladesh_building_collapse_toll_nears_200_joe_fresh_clothing_other_brands_made_at_site.html

[3] http://www.laborrights.org/sites/default/files/publications-and-resources/DeadlySecrets.pdf

[4] Major buyers in Bangladesh include H&M, GAP and Wal-Mart

[5] http://www.laborrights.org/sites/default/files/publications-and-resources/DeadlySecrets.pdf

Building Collapse Today Is Another Wake-Up Call for Walmart and Other Major Buyers to Act Immediately to Prevent Future Tragedies

 

Activists march in front of Walmart store in Seattle on Wednesday

More than 80 workers died and hundreds were injured when apparel factories collapsed in the Rana Plaza building in Dhaka, Bangladesh today. Families continue to search for survivors.  This disaster comes just 5 months after the fire at Tazreen Fashions garment factory near Dhaka, which killed 112 workers on November 24, 2012.  Walmart-labeled product was found in Tazreen and now one of the factories in the Rana complex, Ether-Tex, had listed Walmart-Canada as a buyer on their website.  Walmart has yet to contribute to the worker compensation fund for Tazreen vicitms.

International Labor Rights Forum and other labor rights groups are calling for immediate action from international corporations and brands.  “We need the brands to make significant changes in how they monitor their suppliers and to make a meaningful commitment to worker safety,” said Judy Gearhart, Executive Director of the ILRF.  The Bangladesh Fire and Building Safety Agreement, a binding agreement that has been endorsed by two global brands, would create rigorous inspections, transparency and oversight and ensure that workers and their organizations are an integral part of the solution. 

Reports from Dhaka today show that a crack had developed a day earlier, but management appears to have ignored the warning sign and assured workers it was safe to work.  Bank workers who worked in the same complex were told not to come in due to the risk.  “With a transparent agreement in place, such as the safety agreement, it would not have been so easy to disregard the warning signs and send workers back in to their death,” said Gearhart. 

This month, International Labor Rights Forum is touring the United States with Kalpona Akter, executive director of the Bangladesh Center for Worker Solidarity, and Sumi Abedin, a young garment worker who survived the Tazreen fire after jumping from a third story window.

This week, firefighters in Seattle stand in solidarity with garment workers in Bangladesh

The purpose of the “End Death Traps: Safe Workplaces for All” tour is to call on Walmart and all other Tazreen buyers to pay full and fair compensation to the victims of the fire and to call on Gap, JCP, Abercrombie, Kohl’s and other major retailers which have been implicated in past fires in Bangladesh to join the legally-binding fire safety agreement with worker representation.

 

“Our deepest sympathies go out to the families of workers lost in this tragic event. It must be said, these tragedies can be prevented by multinational corporations like Walmart and Gap that operate in Bangladesh.  Because of these companies' negligence and willful ignorance, garment workers are in danger every day because of the unsafe working conditions,” said Kalpona Akter. “As we learn more details, we will better understand the brands that were manufactured in these factories, but we already know that the largest retailers in the world hold tremendous power to transform conditions for garment workers - mostly young women - in Bangladesh.  Today’s news is yet another reminder that multinational companies must immediately sign onto and implement the Bangladesh Fire and Building Safety Agreement, a legally-binding program with worker representation and fair pricing for mandatory building repairs and renovations. This safety agreement is the first step toward ensuring no more lives are lost.”

Tazreen Fire Survivor Meets with Rep. Miller

By International Labor Rights Forum

Today, ILRF brought a survivor of the Tazreen fire and a Bangladeshi labor rights leader to meet with Rep. George Miller in Washington, DC. Here's what Rep. Miller said following the meeting: 

Rep. Miller Statement on Meeting with Survivor of Bangladesh’s Tazreen Factory Fire and other Human Rights Leaders

WASHINGTON – Rep. George Miller (D-Calif.), the senior Democrat on the House Education and the Workforce Committee, issued the following statement today after meeting with a survivor of the Tazreen factory fire and other human rights leaders. Rep. Miller met with Sumi Abedin, a survivor of the Tazreen fire in Bangladesh that killed 112 workers in November 2012, Kalpona Akter, the executive director of the Bangladesh Center for Worker Solidarity, and other international workers’ rights leaders.

“Sumi has shown great courage in travelling to the United States in order to speak out on the horrific Tazreen factory fire that took the lives of 112 of her coworkers. Her stories provide real insight into the outrageous working conditions that she and her fellow workers had to endure. There have been at least 40 fires in Bangladeshi garment factories since this tragedy.  It’s only a matter of time before the next Tazreen happens. I am increasingly concerned that the response by most U.S. brands that subcontract with these manufacturers has been woefully inadequate. When the cost to fix these fire hazards is estimated to be a mere 10 cents per garment, global brands like GAP and Wal-Mart need to be committing resources and entering into enforceable agreements to protect the lives of workers who create the ready-to-wear clothes they sell. Sumi’s coworkers who perished in this fire must not be forgotten.”

Global Supply Chain Workers Pressure Walmart to Get Serious About Labor Conditions

At First-Ever Meeting, Workers Release Core Principles to Ensure Safe and Legal Working Conditions

By Warehouse Workers United

In an unprecedented meeting, workers from Walmart’s global supply chain gathered Tuesday to release core principles that would ensure basic labor standards in the megaretailer’s global supply chain.

The meeting was timed to correspond with the arrival of two Bangladeshi garment workers to Southern California. One, 19-year-old Sumi Abedin, jumped out of a burning factory that produced clothes for Walmart. The November 2012 fire killed 112 people. The New York Times reported that Walmart played the lead role in blocking increased fire safety protections at Bangladeshi garment factories the year before, claiming the cost would be too high.

Over the course of 2012, guestworkers, factory workers and warehouse workers exposed deadly, unsafe and illegal conditions inside Walmart’s contracted facilities. In response to pressure from workers’ groups, Walmart has accepted responsibility for conditions in its supply chain, but the company’s own solutions fail to uphold its basic standards and the law.

“Walmart must work with workers in each facet of its supply chain to ensure dignity and safety,” said Mike Compton, a warehouse worker from Illinois who traveled to Los Angeles for the meeting. “There is nowhere for workers to go right now – a complaint to Walmart goes into a black hole. There are so many workers laboring to make Walmart successful, the company has to engage with us to make sure working conditions are safe and legal.”

Workers across the Walmart supply chain agreed that standards must be enforceable and credible, and that workers must have a voice in the process.

“We faced brutal conditions, including threats of deportation and violence against us and our families if we complained,” said Ana Rosa Diaz, a former guestworker at Walmart supplier C.J’s Seafood in Louisiana and a member of the National Guestworker Alliance. “When we went on strike, Walmart tried to cover up the abuse. Only after hundreds of thousands of people stood up to support us, Walmart ended its contract with C.J.’s.”

Workers in today’s international convening are responding to Walmart’s “Standards for Suppliers” with their own set of core principles.

“What workers have shown is that Walmart’s standards are nothing more than a sheet of paper,” said Guadalupe Palma, director of Warehouse Workers United. “Today workers have put forward a solution that would lift working standards globally and create enforceable, credible standards that are centered around workers.”

Tuesday’s meeting included workers from the National Guestworker Alliance, Bangladesh Center for Workers Solidarity, Warehouse Workers United, New Labor, Warehouse Workers for Justice and Jobs with Justice, along with professors, community leaders and others.

Workers, regardless of geography, will stay in contact over social media channels and workers on the east coast will hold a similar convening April 18.

Stephen Coats, One of Our Heroes

By Lynda Yanz, Maquila Solidarity Network

Like all of you who knew and worked with Stephen, we at the Maquila Solidarity Network were shocked when we got the news on Tuesday morning about his death. I still can’t believe it is true; nor can I imagine the next few years (and the challenges we face as a movement) without him.

Over the past almost 20 years of MSN’s existence, Stephen has been the friend and colleague we always turned to for advice before contacting brands or launching a campaign about another case of worker rights abuses or a government or corporate policy issue. In recent years, we managed to cajole Stephen into involvement in garment cases, despite the fact USLEAP wasn’t making the garment sector a priority any more. Stephen was one of our heroes.

Stephen was always brutally honest about any campaign’s chances of success, and for him that meant, will this result in worker organization and improvements in workers’ lives.  He seemed to embody that Gramscian dictum of pessimism of the intellect and optimism of the will – the challenge of fighting for workers’ rights in a difficult historical period without illusions and without becoming disillusioned. Stephen was a thoughtful steady hand in the labour rights movement.  He was also a special friend and a kind and generous man, generous with his time, his thoughts, and his advice. We will miss him dearly.

Remembering Stephen Coats / Recordando a Stephen Coats

By Judy Gearhart, Executive Director, International Labor Rights Forum

It is with great sadness that we post this news.  Stephen Coats, Executive Director of USLEAP, passed away on April 2, 2013.  Stephen was a tremendous friend and a tireless advocate of workers’ rights.  He touched so many people around the world, serving as a leader in building worker solidarity in the Americas.  Stephen’s dedication and humility inspired so many worker rights advocates.  This is a tremendous loss for all.

Es con tremenda tristeza que pegamos estas noticias.  Stephen Coats, Director Ejecutiva de USLEAP, se falleció el 2 de abril 2013.  Stephen fue un gran amigo y un promotor de derechos laborales sin cansancio.  Toco tantas personas a través del mundo, sirviendo como líder en la construcción de la solidaridad obrera en las Américas.  El compromiso y dedicación de Stephen a este trabajo inspiro miles de promotores de derechos laborales.  Es una perdida tremenda para todos/as.

2012 Wrap Up: Which Chocolate Companies Lead and Which Ones Lag?

By Adeline Lambert, Research Associate, International Labor Rights Forum

This week the Child Labor Cocoa Coordinating Group (CLCCG) will wrap up its meetings for 2013. Over the last few days, chocolate companies, the Ivorian and US Governments, and civil society organizations have met to receive updates on the work that is being done by the cocoa industry and the Ivorian government to end child labor and child trafficking on cocoa farms. 

The CLCCG has created an important platform for company and government reporting and has been useful in evaluating the commitments of various bodies. The Ivorian government came to the table with solid benchmarks and achievements and specific challenges for the future. We applaud their efforts to seek coordination and evaluation of the myriad projects being implemented in the cocoa fields.

As each of the major chocolate companies gave their status reports for the last year and their projections for the future, it became clear that there has been a significant increase in company commitments under the Harkin-Engel Protocol over the last year. Many companies showed commitment to communities that they source from. But it also became clear that while some companies are leading the charge against child labor, others lag behind. 

Securing Fair Trade: A Response to Theo Chocolate

By Judy Gearhart, Executive Director, International Labor Rights Forum

This week the International Labor Rights Forum (ILRF) released a new report that adds to the growing body of evidence that certifications need added safeguards to ensure they are legally accountable to workers in the supply chains they monitor.

The report, titled Aiding and Abetting, exposes how Swiss-based Institute for Marketecology (IMO), which certifies companies using the Fair for Life label, branded Theo Chocolate, a Seattle-based chocolate company, with its fair trade label despite being informed by Theo workers that the company had hired an anti-union consultant and was violating the international labor standards promoted by Fair For Life during a union organizing campaign.

Shortly after we released the report Theo Chocolate issued a statement disputing the report’s findings.

Theo’s response to our report was expected. The report is based on interviews with workers whose organizing drive was thwarted, so it does not surprise us that Theo management has a different perspective. In such cases management often seeks to portray grievances raised as those of a disgruntled few. Yet several things remain unexplained about the Theo case. 

What happened at Theo after two-thirds of workers formally expressed an interest in forming a union that would push the majority of workers to sign a petition against unionizing within a year?  Why did Theo hire a consultant who advertised his services in union-avoidance strategies?  And how can a fair trade auditor paid by management objectively review a complaint by workers about management?

Answers to these questions cannot be determined via an ILRF delegation to Theo’s factory organized by Theo management, as suggested by Joe Whinney, Theo Chocolate CEO. Nor is ILRF as an outside party in a position to resolve the dispute. It must be noted however, that the ILRF’s report is not a demand that Theo workers be forced to organize. 

The recommendations in Aiding and Abetting are intended to balance out Theo’s past communications to workers about unions and organizing, in short an equalizing follow-up to Theo having hired ACG, which publicized its union-avoidance consulting services on its website. The only way for Theo to repair the damage done during Theo management’s anti-union drive would be to enter into a dialogue with the union in order to establish an agreement that would create an environment in which workers could organize, if they so choose, without fear of retaliation. Then workers would be able to choose for themselves if and how to organize.

Sadly, Theo’s use of union busting tactics and Theo management’s unwillingness to atone for labor rights violations is typical in the United States.

The core recommendation of the report is directed toward IMO which neglected to intervene to uphold its commitment to fair trade standards as the Theo case played out. The Theo case illustrates how certification bodies, paid directly by employers, can harm efforts by workers to unionize rather than help them. It also shows how workers, seeking to use certification codes and processes constructively, are put at a disadvantage when there is no transparency around the grievance process and no independent appeal of findings from a certifier’s investigation. To be sure, the workers should have filed with the National Labor Relations Board, but their employer had committed – in the language of the Fair for Life code – to maintain an open attitude towards unions.  Filing a legal complaint would have been a more aggressive approach than trying to work through the certification process, which promised to ensure remedies for violations of the code.

In response to the Theo case, IMO Fair for Life actually diluted its standards. Currently, IMO’s code encourages employers to hire consultants to talk to workers about the advantages and possible disadvantages of unionization; effectively sanctioning management interference with workers’ organizing decisions. This approach does nothing to ensure that employers are kept from seeking to influence workers’ organizing decisions.

Our vision is to establish a process that could serve any labor rights certification and monitoring program; a proposal for creating a more credible and independent mechanism for reviewing investigations by certifying organizations in cases where workers’ rights to organize and bargain collectively are at risk. Specifically, we believe fair trade certifiers should make their auditing results transparent and establish an “International Fair Trade Board of Appeal” to assess and remedy instances where fair trade organizations mishandle cases involving allegations of workers’ rights violations. By addressing the inherent conflict-of-interest created when monitors are paid by the company they audit, the proposed solution will provide workers a useful tool in their efforts to win dignified treatment in the workplace.

Although the ILRF has no financial stake in the fair trade movement, we are interested in ensuring that the fair trade movement maintains a higher standard than more mainstream codes of conduct.  And as there are now a growing number of fair trade certified work places with wage laborers, we want to make sure the fair trade community fully understands what it means to ensure workers’ rights to organize. 

If the fair trade movement gets this right, they’ll win on two levels: the movement will stay true to their mission; and it will build a bridge to another social movement that is also concerned with building collective power:  the labor movement.