News

Gopinath and Brinda from our partners Cividep in Bangalore South India will be visiting the UK in May, and they’ll be speaking in Manchester on May 12th, and in London the week after.
Hua Wei from the Centre for Socio-cultural Change at the University of Manchester will also be participating, on garment manufacturing in the UK, together with speakers from Labour behind the Label, Women Working Worldwide and Homeworkers’ WorldWide.

We’re very happy to be working with Labour behind the Label and the Change your Shoes campaign to organise this Panel Discussion at Bridge5Mill on Friday 12th May, from 2-4pm. Everyone Welcome!

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Its great to see some Footwear Retailers have recognised the importance of supply chain transparency in the garment and footwear industry, by signing up to Human Rights Watch Follow the Thread Pledge. Check it out here:

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Great to see this important new report on exploitation in the Indian leather industry from India Committee of the Netherlands recognise that female homeworkers are ‘among the most precarious workers … (facing) insecure and unprotected work, poverty wages and unsafe working conditions.’ The report also usefully summarises responses from major footwear retailers.

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We welcome this new report from the Change your Shoes Campaign, highlighting the significant role that homeworking plays in the shoe industry in Indonesia. Homeworking is a really important form of work that enables women across the world to earn a living, but there are no excuses for poor labour practices that exploit these workers.

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Workers in Bangladesh’s garment industry went on strike in December calling for increases to the minimum wage. Instead of agreeing to pay a living wage, or even to bring forward a wage review, factory owners brought unsubstantiated criminal charges against at dozens of labor leaders and garment workers.

At least 24 activists and workers have already been arrested and are being held in police custody where they have been denied bail. Some have received threats of torture or death. Over 1500 workers have been reportedly dismissed from their jobs and potentially blacklisted from future garment work.

Please sign the petition to call on brands whose clothes are made at the factories behind the complaints to take immediate action for the dismissal of the falsified charges and the release of the jailed activists and workers! This petition will be delivered to H&M, Gap Inc (owns Banana Republic and Old Navy), C&A, Inditex (owns Zara and Bershka), and VF (owns 30 brands including North Face, Jansport, and Lee), which source from the factories pressing the charges.

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