Corporate Social Responsibility

War on Want report on the success of a campaign to force major clothes retailers to pay for safer factories in Bangladesh.

Labour Behind the Label have let us know about their "Six Items Challenge" fundraiser. Could you go six weeks wearing only six items of clothing (you are expected to wash them occasionally!)?

Here at No Sweat we're not sure we agree with all the messages that this campaign might send out - austerity is good, for example? - but it sheds light on the exploitative reality behind "fast fashion" - and raising money for Labour Behind the Label can't be bad!

UPDATE: Challenge blog here: http://thesixitemschallenge.wordpress.com/2012/02/21/the-six-and-only/

No Sweat joined Labour Behind the Label in a "Ban Killer Jeans" protest outside Dolce & Gabbana on London's Bond Street. We are campaigning for D&G to join the brands banning sandblasting in their supply chain. Sandblasting causes respiratory diseases that kill workers. Sign the petition: http://www.labourbehindthelabel.org/support-us/item/947-killerjeansluxur...

The owners of Spanish fashion chain Zara say they are strengthening the oversight of their production system after workers were found toiling in a Brazilian sweatshop.

GENEAVA on 16 June 2011 - For the first time in its history, the United Nations has agreed a framework to address the human rights impacts of business activities around the world. Implementing the United Nations 'Protect, Respect and Remedy' Framework" proposed by UN Special Representative John Ruggie.

A new play about ethics in the fashion industry...

Please visit the CCC website to take action and write to the brands implicated within to demand that the workers are allowed to return to work immediately, with compensation paid for the time they have been without work.

"Systematic Exploitation" in Indian Garment Hub
A new report by the UK-based organisations Labour Behind the Label and War on Want details the extremely poor working conditions in Gurgaon, India, one of the main centers of garments production in Asia. Labour Behind the Label is name of the British CCC.

Read on for more and to take action:

From Clean Clothes campaign:

Complaint against Consumer Deception Successful

Consumer and worker rights organisations are celebrating a historic victory after the giant German retailer Lidl agreed to withdraw public claims that its goods were being produced under fair and decent working conditions. The agreement was reached following a legal challenge, launched by the Consumer Agency Hamburg, which accused Lidl of engaging in false advertising.

As the Olympic torch is handed on from this year's Winter Olympics in Vancouver to London, the Playfair 2012 coalition is launching a campaign for an ethical London Games.

A new(ish) leaflet from No Sweat for use on stalls and fashion shows etc to highlight Primark's sweatshop record.

Tata, the transnational Indian conglomerate whose wholly-owned subsidiary Tetley makes the world famous Tetley Teas, has taken 6,500 people hostage through hunger. The hostages are nearly 1,000 tea plantation workers and their families on the Nowera Nuddy Tea Estate in West Bengal, India. The workers, living in poverty and always on the edge of hunger, are locked out and have been denied wages for all but two days' work since early August.

Jeff Ballinger's discussion article first appeared in the US socialist magazine, Dissent....

That nearly twenty years of anti-sweatshop activism has come to naught is suggested by the cost breakdown of a $38 University of Connecticut hoodie that appeared in the Hartford Courant a couple of years ago: the workers received a mere 18 cents, while the university received $2.24 in licensing fees. (Mexican factory: profit, 70 cents; overhead, $2.12; material, $5.50–distributor [Champion]: overhead $5.10; profit $1.75–Seller [UCONN Co-Op]: overhead, $14.49; profit, $4.50). The workers’ share could hardly have been lower when the movement began.

Saturday 4th April 2009 saw the second anniversary of the opening of Primarks flagship store on Oxford St, so No Sweat went down to commemorate the day with a Fashion Show of Shame, highlighting the use of sweatshops in Bangladesh and the exploitation of workers in the UK. Check out the pics...

Corporation-free.org was setup by Pete Davis - a member of People & Planet - with the primary goal of exposing the dirty deeds of 8 very irresponsible corporations. It also aims to provide ethical alternatives and since its creation it has already gathered over 50 people pledging to seek those alternatives and avoid the targeted multinationals: Coca-Cola, KFC, Tesco, Exxon, RBS/Natwest, e.on, Nestlé and Topshop.

Giant retailers cashing in on poverty wages
Carrefour, Tesco, Aldi, Lidl, Walmart profit while supply chain workers face rights violations.

War on Want has launched its latest report Fashion Victims II: How UK clothing retailers are keeping workers in poverty, which exposes the appalling conditions faced by workers producing clothes for Primark, Tesco and Asda.

From the Guardian, Dec 3, 2008. Original article in response to our letter, plus response from TUC chief Brendan Barber to TUC General Council and affiliates.

Apparently, the TUC is thinking hard about who it books its facilities out to. We would still like to see the AGM blocked and a firm statement from the TUC urging Primark to clean up its act!

TUC in 'sweatshop labour' row over firm hiring congress hall

The TUC general secretary, Brendan Barber, is refusing to back down over a decision to let out its congress hall this Friday to a British company whose suppliers are alleged to use sweatshop labour in Bangladesh to manufacture cheap T shirts.

On Nov 27 a labour court in Bangkok gave Body Fashion Thailand, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Triumph International, the green light in its effort to dismiss union president Jitra Kotshadej.

Please find below a new e-action asking the Co-op to support the supermarket watchdog Action Aid and others have been campaigning for. Please do send it yourself and pass on to others who would do the same.

A threadbare defence
Primark answered critics over its use of child labour by closing factories in India. But its PR worries aren't over yet
Ewa Jasiewicz

Five months after the Panorama child labour exposé, Primark has been caught with its trousers down – this time over a protest against the clothing company's participation in a major PR event.

British fast fashion giant PRIMARK was due to present on how it weathered the Panorama scandal which exposed the use of child labour in its' supply chains this summer. Unfortunately for them their boasts of having made the outcry go away were premature!