WELCOME TO THE ARCHIVE (1994-2014) OF THE MAQUILA SOLIDARITY NETWORK. For current information on our ongoing work on the living wage, women's labour rights, freedom of association, corporate accountability and Bangladesh fire and safety, please visit our new website, launched in October, 2015: www.maquilasolidarity.org
Send a letter to Wal-Mart today, urging the world's largest and most powerful retailer to use its considerable influence to put a stop to blatant and serious violations of workers' rights at the Chong Won supply factory in the Philippines. To send a letter immediately, click here.
Canadian t-shirt manufacturer Gildan Activewear is closing two factories in Mexico, two Montreal textile plants and a cutting operation in New York. An estimated 1,365 Mexican and 465 Canadian and U.S. workers will be laid off. Workers at the Mexican factories were particularly hard hit, as the region is already reeling from Hanesbrands' laying-off of 1,700 workers in December 2006. With MSN’s assistance, our local Mexican partner organization in Monclova, SEDEPAC, put forward a series of proposals to Gildan.
The Worker Rights Consortium (WRC) released the results of an independent investigation of the Chong Won Fashion Inc. factory in the Philippines on February 21, 2007. On March 26, 2007, Wal-Mart released a synopsis of a report by the US monitoring organization Verité. Both reports confirmed serious abuses of worker rights to freedom of association and collective bargaining at the factory.
In October 2006, MSN was contacted by our colleagues at SEDEPAC, a member of the Espacio based in the state of Coahuila, Mexico, concerning the imminent closure of a Hanesbrands factory in the city of Monclova. MSN and SEDEPAC worked to ensure that workers received full severance and health benefits, and are tracking the company’s plans for other factories in Mexico.
In December 2003, MSN, together with the Canadian Labour Congress and the Independent Federation of Honduran Workers (FITH), filed a formal complaint with the Fair Labor Association (FLA) concerning the unjust firings of workers suspected of union sympathies at Gildan Activewear's El Progreso factory in Honduras. The complaint alleged that there was a pattern of violations of freedom of association at the factory. On January 6, the same parties filed a complaint with the Worker Rights Consortium (WRC). Investigations by both the FLA and WRC confirmed MSN's allegations of violations of worker rights at the factory.
In December 2003, MSN, the Canadian Labour Congress and the Independent Federation of Honduran Workers (EMIH) filed a formal complaint with the Fair Labor Association (FLA) concerning the unjust firings of workers at a Gildan factory in Honduras. The next month, the same parties filed a complaint with the Worker Rights Consortium (WRC).
When Gildan subsequently announced it was closing the Honduran factory in the midst of the complaints process, grassroots campaigns targeting Gildan Activewear in Canada and the United States succeeded in pressuring Gildan to agree to a corrective action plan.
Campaigning against Gildan proceeded until 2006, when MSN, the WRC and EMIH released a joint final report showing that while Gildan hadn't fully complied with the agreement, it did make serious efforts to do so in later months of the process. MSN has since suspended its Gildan campaign.
Three months after receiving reports of serious worker rights abuses and police violence against protesting workers at its Chong Won Fashion supply factory in the Philippines, Wal-Mart is still delaying taking the necessary steps to fix the problem. Take action now.
Workers producing clothes for Wal-Mart at the Korean-owned Chong Won Fashion garment factory in the Philippines went on strike to end the employers' attempt to destroy their union through violence, mass firings and intimidation. The employer responded by shutting down the factory.
Revealing Clothing, ETAG's second Transparency Report Card, picks up where Coming Clean on the Clothes We Wear left off. It assesses and compares public reporting on labour standards compliance by 30 top apparel retailers and brands selling clothes in the Canadian market, including Levi Strauss, Nike, adidas, H&M, Mountain Equipment Co-op, Roots, La Senza, Reitmans and 22 others. This year's report also discusses worker involvement, purchasing practices and sustainable compliance.
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