News

Peter Williams for HWW is publishing a blog on the Ethical Trading Initiative website today, highlighting the learning from our 2018 Innovations Fund project documenting working conditions in footwear supply chains, both within the factories and for homeworkers stitching leather uppers.

This was carried out in partnership with Cividep India and the Dalit Solidarity Network and two ETI member companies and their respective suppliers, with financial support from the ETI’s Innovation Fund.

The full report, entitled Due Diligence in Tamil nadu leather footwear manufacture, is also available on our website.

HWW is keen to work with other companies sourcing leather footwear from Tamil Nadu; please contact lucy Brill on lucy(at)homeworkersww.org.uk for more information.

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HWW is publishing today a report of our scoping study on working conditions in the textile and garment manufacturing industry within Greater Manchester. Thanks to everyone who helped us complete this study, particularly the workers and employers we spoke to, and the community workers and activists who helped us make contact with them, particularly Sandra Penaloza Rice and her colleagues at Migrants Support.

The report provides evidence that confirmed that the low wage rates (around £4/hour) and double accounting systems found by Professor Hammer in Leicester in 2015 were also present in sections of the industry in Greater Manchester. Small manufacturers also highlighted the challenges they faced, due to large retailers’ unfair purchasing practices, which included driving down prices to levels where it was impossible for them to pay their workers properly and leaving invoices unpaid for several months at a time.

We also highlight the importance of further research to enable workers voices to be heard in the debate to improve working conditions within UK manufacturing, and to prioritise our provisional policy recommendations. These include the importance of accessible employment rights advice backed up by effective enforcement services, that operate independently of immigration controls. Large retailers particularly those who value the flexibility and fact turnaround that local manufacturers can provide, need to recognise their responsibilities, and support their much smaller UK based suppliers to provide decent working conditions and a sustainable future for the UK industry.

HWW would be very keen to collaborate with others to find ways to extend this work. Please contact Lucy Brill at lucy(at)homeworkersww.org.uk to find out more.

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We have just published a Biannual Report covering our work in 2017 and 2018. To find out more about our key areas of work and our plans for the future you can read the full document in our Resources section.

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Great to see our friend and colleague Jane Tate’s contribution to the campaign for homeworkers’ rights reported in the UK’s Guardian newspaper.
Thanks to all Jane’s friends and colleagues past and present who worked together to put this Obituary together.
We miss her support and inspiration and are committed to continuing her work in 2019!

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Jane Tate, who with others founded HWW in 1999, died recently, at her home in Leeds, after a long illness.

She first encountered homeworkers when working as an Outreach worker in West Yorkshire during the 1980s, making contact with workers who were not members of trade unions, usually in small and scattered workplaces, to inform them of their employment rights.

Jane’s patient yet determined enquiries led to the discovery of thousands of women working at home —some sewing garments, but many also involved in printing, engineering, electronics or clerical work.

Most were employed completely informally, and for very low wages, and often had irregular work, with no rights to sick pay, holiday pay or severance pay.

She subsequently made contact with activists across Europe who were uncovering the expansion of homeworking during the 1990s, as manufacturers sought more flexible forms of employment.

During this time, Jane also made links with organisations in India, building relationships with many researchers and activists working on gender and labour rights issues.

In more recent years Jane’s work on international homeworking issues focussed on the global leather footwear industry, where homeworkers play a key role in the hand stitching of leather uppers.

For more information about Jane’s work, please contact Lucy (lucy(at)homeworkersww.org.uk).

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