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Greater Manchester textile and garment industry: a scoping study

This is a report of an initial scoping study documenting working conditions within the textile and garment industry (TGI) within Greater Manchester, based on fieldwork carried out in 2017, funded by the British Cotton Growing Association Work People’s Collection Fund. The report highlights 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. 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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2018 Biannual Report

This short document highlights the key areas of HWW's work from 2017-2018.

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Case closed, problems persist

This paper published in June 2018, investigates how Social Accountability International (SAI) – a social certification organisation for factories and organisations, and the Ethical Trading Initiative (ETI) – an alliance of companies, trade unions and voluntary organisations working to improve the lives of workers – have dealt with concrete complaints about abusive labour conditions in the textile and garment industry in South India. The report was written by Homeworkers Worldwide (HWW), the India Committee of the Netherlands (ICN) and the Centre for Research on Multinational Corporations (SOMO). The authors looked at how concrete complaints were dealt by ETI and SAI respectively and whether their complaints systems meet the standards of the United Nations Guiding Principles for Business and Human Rights. We hope that this report will contribute to on going debates about how multi-stakeholder initiatives and companies concerned to improve working conditions in global supply chains can respond more effectively to grievances raised by workers and organisations seeking to represent them.

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Recognition for women homeworkers: Responding to Homeworking in Leather Footwear Manufacturing

Homeworkers Worldwide has been working on the issue of women homeworkers stitching the leather uppers for many years, in many different countries. This report provides a more detailed look at the recent work with homeworkers in Ambur in Tamil Nadu, in partnership with Cividep.

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Good Employment for Homeworkers

This summary report describes the first phase of our on-going project with Pentland Brands, tracing the homeworkers within their leather footwear supply chain in South India.

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Model Homeworking Policy

Homeworkers Worldwide recommends companies adopt a homeworking policy, stating their positive recognition of the role homeworkers play in supply chains. This model homeworking policy provides a useful template with key principles to help you draw up your own company homeworking policy.

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Stitching Our Shoes: Homeworkers in the leather footwear industry

Many of the shoes we buy were stitched by women working at home, but the homeworkers who make our shoes remain unrecognised, without rights or respect. This in depth report explores the role of homeworkers in global supply chains, their poor pay and working conditions and the possibilities for change. This report was produced in March 2016 as part of the Europe-wide CHANGE YOUR SHOES campaign.

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Summary - Stitching Our Shoes

This summary is a brief introduction to the main findings and recommendations of our Stitching Our Shoes report on homeworkers in the leather footwear industry. It was produced by HWW, Labour Behind the Label and Cividep as part of the CHANGE YOUR SHOES campaign.

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Briefing Note 1. Organising Homeworkers in Tirupur’s Garment Industry

Briefing Note 1 in our Organising Women Workers series. Across the world, women workers are concentrated in the poorest paid jobs, with the fewest rights and least job security. Often traditional organising approaches are too rigid to answer the needs of working women and new methods are needed. We want to shine a spotlight on some inspiring examples of trade unions and NGOs who are working to support the organisation of women workers in highly challenging circumstances.

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Briefing Note 2. The Aekta Project: Organising garment workers in the West Midlands, UK

Briefing Note 2 in our Organising Women Workers series. In the West Midlands in the 1980s a shift towards faster flexible fashion led to a growth in small factories and workshops employing mainly Asian women workers, under appalling working conditions. The Aekta Project was established in 1985 in response to this exploitation. Much has changed in the intervening 30 years, but the resurgence of fast, cheap garment manufacturing, means that the lessons of the Aekta Project are now more pertinent than ever.

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