Women's Views on News |
- Garment-making scandal: not only Asia
- Call on Adidas to go all in for a living wage
- Right To Be Forgotten “unworkable”
| Garment-making scandal: not only Asia Posted: 05 Aug 2014 07:23 AM PDT
Earlier this year the Clean Clothes Campaign released a major report that exposed widespread human rights violations in garment factories across Eastern Europe. The report, “Stitched Up – Poverty wages for garment workers in Eastern Europe and Turkey”, is the result of extensive research, including interviews with over 300 garment workers in 10 countries in the region. Eastern Europe and Turkey make up a significant production hub for UK and EU27 consumers; approximately half of the garments imported into the EU27 are produced within geographical Europe. Producing for the likes of Adidas, Hugo Boss and H&M the report concludes that rather than alleviating insecurity, garment work is locking the women and men who make our clothes into a life of poverty. Western European fashion brands and retailers increasingly exploit post-socialist Europe paying wages set far below subsistence and poverty lines. In nearly all of the countries researched the gap between the minimum wage and a living wage is larger than it is in Asia, challenging the common perception that the exploitation of garment workers is confined to factories in the Global South. In the absence of any legal minimum wage, an Adidas worker in Georgia, to take one example, earns EUR5 for an 8-hour day. Researchers found that despite a long history in garment production and the highly skilled workforce, a significant proportion of workers rely on subsistence agriculture or a second job just to survive. Across the region the legal minimum wage is only between 14 per cent – in Bulgaria, Ukraine, or Macedonia – and 36 per cent – in Croatia – of a basic living wage. Hannah Smith, of Labour Behind the Label, said: "This research shows that on our own doorstep, European garment workers are forced to work long hours for wages that do not meet even their most basic of needs. "Brands like Adidas ..; who shelled out £62 million to sponsor the World Cup, have no excuse for denying the people that make their kit the basic right to a living wage." Workers in the region are also hampered by the inability of unions to fight for their rights. A Croatian unionist said, "[…]unions do not have the opportunity to bargain for higher wages since they have to constantly fight illegal practices such as long-term unpaid overtime and unpaid social contributions or long-term unpaid wages." The Clean Clothes Campaign is demanding an end to the myth that sourcing from Europe guarantees decent working conditions. Brands and retailers have to take clear steps and show a true commitment within their own supply chain in order to ensure all those who work for them, wherever they may live, are paid a living wage. The campaign group, along with trade unions and workers throughout the region, are calling on European fashion brands to make sure as a first immediate step that workers in the researched region receive a basic net wage of at least 60 per cent of the national average wage. Buying prices must be calculated on this basis and allow for these wage hikes. "Stitched Up" is part of a series of reports by the Clean Clothes Campaign that look at the situation of garment workers worldwide and the steps brands must take to pay a living wage. And their report titled “Tailored Wages UK – Are the big brands paying the people who make our clothes enough to live on?”, takes a close look at what actions top high street brands and retailers are taking to address the problem of poverty wages in the garment industry. The report profiles 40 companies on the extent to which their actions are having a positive real effect on workers wages in garment factories. The report finds that whilst half of those surveyed include wording in their codes of conduct saying that wages should be enough to meet workers’ basic needs; only four brands – Inditex, Marks & Spencers, Switcher and Tchibo – are able to demonstrate clear progress towards implementing this – and even they have a long way to go before a living wage is realised for the garment workers producing their clothes. Click here to see the results.  |
| Call on Adidas to go all in for a living wage Posted: 05 Aug 2014 04:02 AM PDT
Garment workers who produce Adidas apparel do not get a fair share of the value they generate in the supply chain. They are not paid a wage they can live on, let alone enough to save and thus remain condemned to a life of poverty. So garment workers, the majority of whom are young women, are trapped in a vicious circle of low wages, excessive overtime, unfavourable debt schemes and extreme dependency, making them some of the most vulnerable employees. There is, however, a clear and attainable solution: garment workers should be a paid a living wage. Adidas, for example, expects to make Euros1.7 billion from the sale of football merchandise this year alone. Adidas’s CEO Herbert Hainer hopes the World Cup will catapult the Adidas Group into pole position as leader of the sportswear industry. Through flashy ads, acclaimed and influential spokespeople, and catchy slogans, Adidas is encourging the world to go “all in”. But behind the glitz and the glam of their World Cup marketing there are stories that Adidas doesn’t want you to know. For example: 25 year-old, Sorn Reab spends six days a week waking up at 4:30 a.m. in order to travel to Phnom Penh to begin work at 7 a.m. in a garment factory which supplies apparel to Adidas. Despite working 11 hours a day, she cannot afford to live in Phnom Penh. And tired and weak from malnutrition, she faces the real possibility that today may be the day she faints and ends up in hospital. With the threat that her short-term employment contract may not be renewed in six months, the pressure to produce as many Adidas garments as possible is constant. Sorn Reab’s life in Cambodia is not an exception. It is the norm for the estimated 500,000 garment workers there – over 90 per cent of whom are women under the age of 35. In fact, a majority of the world’s garment workers are young women struggling to survive on their poverty wages. At its core, the garment industry continues to perpetuate a system of extreme inequality, providing inordinate wealth for the privileged few, while condemning the vast majority of workers in the supply chain to unconscionable poverty. It would take Sorn Reab in Cambodia over 7,000 years to earn Adidas CEO Herbert Hainer’s annual salary. Adidas must commit and ensure their purchasing practices are such that a living wage can be paid and is guaranteed in terms of business. Call on Adidas to support workers by: Quantifying and publishing figures for what a ‘fair wage’ means, which ensures all Adidas garment workers can support their families; Ring fencing those wage costs when negotiating with factories to ensure any commitment delivers real wage increases; Publicly committing to not pull out of countries such as Cambodia if minimum wages increase. Call on Adidas to go all in for a living wage. Please sign the petition. Thanks.  |
| Right To Be Forgotten “unworkable” Posted: 05 Aug 2014 01:31 AM PDT
The House of Lords has condemned the recent ‘right to be forgotten’ ruling from the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) as being ‘wrong in principle’ and ‘unworkable’. The ruling states that EU citizens should be able to request that search engines remove certain links from their results. Baroness Prashar, Chairwoman of the House of Lords EU Home Affairs, Health and Education Sub-Committee, said “We believe that the judgment of the Court is unworkable[...] “It is also wrong in principle to leave search engines themselves the task of deciding whether to delete information or not, based on vague, ambiguous and unhelpful criteria. “We do not believe that individuals should be able to have links to accurate and lawfully available information about them removed, simply because they do not like what is said.” The ruling would mean that anyone, including corporations, would be able to ask Google or Bing to take down links to information that they deemed inaccurate. It is inevitable that some companies are likely to abuse the ruling to take down anything negative about them. It is already possible for bloggers to be fined for bad reviews. And earlier this month Google took down a number of news articles from its results – but whether this was to make a point or not remains to be seen. In some ways, this is a worrying precedent – and yet, it could also be used as an incredible tool for those who are victims of “revenge porn” or harassment. For such people, making sure others can no longer access explicit content which they did not consent to sharing, or pages that publish their personal information to harass them would be at least some measure of relief. If the CJEU wish to protect such people, they need to clear up the wording and make sure that individuals, not corporations, are established as the primary beneficiaries.  |
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