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A sportswear working group involving the Maquila Solidarity Network, the International Textile, Garment and Leather Workers Federation, the Clean Clothes Campaign and the International Trade Union Confederation has set out steps sportswear brands need to take to begin to overcome four hurdles that have hindered progress on worker rights in the industry.
The Central General de Trabajadores de Honduras (CGT) and Nike announced a ground-breaking agreement today that will provide a US$1.5 million fund for workers in Honduras that formerly produced Nike apparel. According to a press release from Nike and the CGT, workers will also receive a year's access to the health care system, training and priority hiring. The agreement comes after intense pressure was put on Nike by a student-led campaign that had convinced some US universities to end lucrative licensing agreements with Nike.
Apparel brands with production in Honduras, including adidas Group, Nike Inc. and Gap Inc., released a joint letter sent to US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton "calling for the restoration of democracy in Honduras" following the June 28th military coup. The brands urged "an immediate resolution to the crisis" and asked that "civil liberties, including freedom of the press, freedom of speech, freedom of movement, freedom of assembly, and freedom of association be fully respected."
On July 10, 2008, following the Ethical Trading Forum in Vancouver at which transparency and Olympic licensing was debated with companies, trade unions, NGOs and Olympic organizers, Nike publicly released the full list of factories that produced its products for the Beijing 2008 Olympics.
As the clock ticks down to the Beijing Olympics, international sportswear companies are amassing huge profits and arranging multi-million dollar sponsorship deals with the Games, Olympic athletes and national teams.
Meanwhile, workers producing their goods are still living in poverty. In a new report, “Clearing the Hurdles: Steps to improving working conditions in the global sportswear industry”, Play Fair 2008 calls upon brands, manufacturers, and multi-stakeholder initiatives to overcome four major hurdles to make real, measurable progress on wages and working conditions in the global sportswear industry.
MSN Codes Memo #22
Is Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) reporting measuring the right things? How can stakeholders assess whether a company’s business practices bear any relation to its CSR principles and objectives?
TORONTO - The Maquila Solidarity Network (MSN), an international labour and women's rights organization based in Toronto, today responded to the release of Nike's 2006 Corporate Responsibility Report.
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.
Finally some major brand-name apparel and footwear companies are responding to the call for greater transparency and accountability
On April 13, 2005, Nike released its second Corporate Responsibility Report and the first released since 2001. Read MSN's assessment of the strengths and weaknesses of the Nike CR report.
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