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The Maquila Solidarity Network (MSN) is a labour and women's rights organization that supports the efforts of workers in global supply chains to win improved wages and working conditions and a better quality of life. ( More)
Workers locked out of the Rio Tinto Alcan smelter in Alma, Quebec since last December have filed a complaint calling on the organizers of the London Olympic Games (LOCOG) to drop the resource firm as an official Games supplier of gold, silver and bronze for athletes' medals.
The Play Fair at the Olympics campaign has published a new report detailing systematic and widespread exploitation of workers in 10 sportswear factories in China, Sri Lanka and the Philippines producing sportswear for the London 2012 Olympic Games.
Following the discovery of worker rights violations in two Chinese factories producing Olympic-branded merchandise, organizers for the London 2012 Olympic Games stepped up their efforts to eliminate worker rights abuses in factories making Olympic-brand products - including becoming the first Olympic Games to disclose the factories where Olympic goods are made. Although abuses continue to be uncovered, this is a step forward for Olympics organizing bodies.
Leading U.S. apparel brands are urging the Guatemalan government to resolve the long-pending DR-CAFTA labour complaint filed by six Guatemalan unions and the AFL-CIO four years ago.
In this issue:
Controversy surrounds Foxconn investigation; A groundbreaking deal opens Bangladeshi garment factories to safety inspections; Auto parts company admits signing a protection contract to keep out an independent union; Despite record profits, Johnson Controls to close unionized factory; Mass faintings: A Cambodian tribunal examines the effects of poverty wages on garment workers; Precarious work: A growing campaign to change the law on short-term contracts in Peru; Bangladeshi labour organizer murdered.
Download Update 17.1 here.
The Peoples Tribunal on a Living Wage, which was held in Phnom Penh on February 5 and 6, found that the combination of inadequate nutrition, excessive working hours, and exposure to hot, dusty working environments and harmful chemicals amounts to "a systematic violation of [workers'] fundamental right to a decent human life."
Johnson Controls Inc. (JCI) has announced plans to close its Interiores factory in Puebla, Mexico, less than one year after signing a collective bargaining agreement with an independent union affiliated with the National Union of Mine and Metalworkers (Los Mineros).
On January 30, 8,000 workers at the Arneses y Accesorios de México auto parts factory in Cuidad Acuña were informed by their employer that the company had signed a collective bargaining agreement with the Confederation of Mexican Workers (CTM), without their prior knowledge or consent.
One of the tragic lessons from the disastrous accident at the Eurotex factory, in Dhaka, Bangladesh in December 2011, was that some international brands that had been producing clothing in the factory already knew there were serious safety hazards. Rather than fix the problems, however, they quietly left the factory, leaving workers to face those hazards alone.
On March 29, the Fair Labor Association (FLA) released a much-anticipated report on its investigation into the labour practices at three Foxconn factories in China employing close to 180,000 workers who manufacture electronic devices for Apple including iPads and iPhones.
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