ITUC-CSI-IGB - Health & safety - News

Gap Hitches Ride on Walmart's Bangladesh Race to the Bottom

2013-06-05T13:00:00Z

The decision by US clothing retailer Gap to join Walmart in a non-binding and unenforceable “Bangladesh safety programme” is a sham, according the ITUC. The two retail giants have ignored calls to join the global Bangladesh Fire and Safety Building Accord that has already been welcomed by the ILO and OECD, and signed by more than 40 US, Canadian and European brands.

Sharan Burrow, ITUC General Secretary, said, “Gap and Walmart are now unfortunate bedfellows in a public relations effort that aims to protect their business model rather than Bangladeshi workers. Their refusal to join the global, binding effort brings shame upon them.”

Walmart and Gap have announced they are working on their own “safety programme” with some employer lobby groups and the US Bipartisan Policy Center, a think-tank of US political figures that “works to address the key challenges” facing the USA.

“The Bipartisan Policy Center has a very strong track record on advocacy around US policy issues, but it doesn't seem to have any background on fire and building safety or on Bangladesh. Walmart and Gap have avoided any commitments and can simply step away from their own programme any time they choose,” said Burrow. “Three weeks ago Walmart said its own unilateral plan would bring faster results than the global accord, yet now they are launching into a new programme with Gap, causing even greater confusion and uncertainty. Gap said earlier that they were close to signing the global accord, but in the end didn't want anything legally-binding.”

For more information, please contact the ITUC Press Department on: +32 2 224 02 04 or +32 476 621 018

Bangladesh Labour Law Needs Fixing

2013-05-31T12:18:44Z

An ITUC mission to Bangladesh this week has called for the government to bring its labour laws into line with ILO standards, to allow workers organise unions to bargain collectively for decent wages and protect themselves from dangerous workplaces.

“Legal changes the government is proposing seem to be more cosmetic than real, and would still leave garment workers without the means to protect themselves from being exploited. We've said to the Bangladesh government that there needs to be a tripartite process, with government, employers and unions engaged in the vital task of developing new laws. Bangladesh badly needs to repair its battered reputation for labour abuses if it is going to ensure fair treatment for workers and to maintain and grow exports,” said ITUC Deputy General Secretary Wellington Chibebe, who led the mission along with ITUC-AP General Secretary Noriyuki Suzuki.

The current labour law recognises the right to form a union but falls well below international standards. Employers in the huge garment industry, with the support or acquiescence of the government, have been able to prevent workers forming and joining unions, immediately firing with impunity those who dared to organise for dignity on the job. Under pressure from multinational companies for many years to keep production costs at rock bottom, the government has for too long ignored workers' wellbeing and safety. The fact that a large number of factory owners also hold seats in parliament has also hindered reform and contributed to the appalling safety record of the industry. Wages for the mainly female workforce, working shifts of up to 12 hours, are often less than two dollars per day.

“The terrible human cost of the Rana Plaza collapse has put the spotlight on the Bangladesh garment industry once again, and many international brands have signed up with global unions to a common effort to tackle building safety and fire hazards. The government needs to play its part now, and that means laws that meet international standards,” said Chibebe.

For more information, please contact the ITUC Press Department on: +32 2 224 02 04 or +32 476 621 018

Bangladesh and the labour law

2013-05-22T09:32:45Z

1. What does Bangladesh labour law looks like currently?

The government has failed to enforce the laws it has on the books. This is not merely a question of a lack of capacity, but also reflects a deep-rooted anti-union bias, in part due to the enormous influence that the garment industry (and others) has over the government. The labour law was amended in 2006, but still has several serious deficiencies, including the wholesale exclusion of many classes of workers, high thresholds on the minimum number required to form a union, restrictions on the right to choose their own leaders, restrictions on collective bargaining and several on the right to strike.

The ILO annual report on Bangladesh runs for several pages, cataloguing numerous deficiencies in law and in practice. The tens of thousands of workers employed in export processing zones have no right to form a union (only associations) and are by law barred from talking to unions outside of the zones. Workers are fired for trade union activity with near complete impunity.

2. What are the most urgent changes to the labour law that you would like to see?

The unions in Bangladesh have indicated several priorities, which include measures that would no longer require the government to hand over a list of the names of the union founders to the employer (who then fires all of them with impunity), the ability to elect officers outside of the enterprise (who have experience in bargaining) and to lower the threshold requirement for forming a union (now 30%), which is quite high. At the same time, the law currently excludes many workers from its coverage, and the unions want to see the law apply to all workers. They have indicated several other priorities related to strikes, termination, benefits, etc.

3. Can the law prevent accidents like the one a few weeks ago from happening?

Anyone who has worked in Bangladesh has known that garment factories are extremely dangerous places to work, as many are fitted with cheap wiring that can lead to fires or are built without solid foundations, leading to collapses. The companies have an obligation to keep the workplace safe, but have failed to do so. Near non-existent inspections have meant that companies have been able to operate without doing anything. After past fires, the industry would make promises and not follow through. However, after the Tazreen fire in 2012, which provoked international outrage, a national plan on fire safety was developed. It is too soon to judge whether this plan will have a meaningful impact.

What would have helped are strong unions that could have demanded that workers not work in deathtraps and that workers could remove themselves from danger when it arose. The recent deaths in the garment sector are a direct result of the refusal of the government to register unions and the industry to recognize and negotiate with them. So yes, new safety laws can help if they are enforced. But equally important is the enforcement of laws permitting trade unions to form and operate.

4. Has Bangladesh ratified the ILO core conventions?

Yes, Bangladesh has ratified 7 of the 8 core conventions, including Convention 87 on freedom of association and Convention 98 on collective bargaining. The problem is not ratifying conventions, but rather transposing those conventions into national law and then enforcing those laws effectively.

5. What does the new Fire & Safety agreement bring to the table?

The Global Unions - IndustriALL and UNI - made history in reaching an agreement with more than 30 garment brands, mostly European, on a comprehensive agreement on fire and building safety. It requires inspections by competent, independent experts, requires companies to remediate violations when they are detected and creates a worker complaints process. The agreement will be managed by a steering committee, which will include trade union representation. The agreement also has important language on transparency, which makes public lists of factories and inspection reports.

6. What responsibility do the clothing brands have?

Some of the problems we see in Bangladesh are the direct result of the sourcing practices of garment brands, which demand orders be filled quickly and at the lowest possible price. The thin margins put tremendous pressure on manufacturing companies in Bangladesh to cut costs, leading to extremely low and at times unpaid wages and utter neglect for health and safety. The fast turn-around leads to excessive hours of work, with overtime typically unpaid. The situation is even worse at the level of subcontractors. The brands of course know this but have not changed their practices, nor have taken serious steps, until now, to address the safety issues. The garment industry needs to re-think its model.

7. Corporate social audits were long seen as a solution to worker rights issues in Bangladesh and elsewhere. What now?

The recent disasters in Bangladesh and Pakistan (and elsewhere) really have exposed these programs as bankrupt. Indeed, some of the factories in the Rana Complex had been recently certified by BSIC, but they explained that they did not check for building safety during their inspections. These inspections were always too methodologically flawed to find any but the most obvious violations. And in some cases, not even those. And, companies rarely made sourcing decisions based on these reports. As a result, the only ones benefitting from the social auditing were the auditors themselves, which made millions providing flawed reports that the companies often disregarded. The auditing industry needs a fundamental rethink.

ITUC Plan of Action for Bangladesh

2013-05-22T09:28:16Z

Next week the ITUC is sending a mission to Bangladesh in order to meet with the Bangladesh affiliates and together create a comprehensive, multi-year “country-at risk” plan.

The plan will focus on at least three areas. First, Bangladesh must enact meaningful labour law reform consistent with ILO standards. Today, the labour law allows workers to join or form unions and to bargain collectively but imposes several serious limitations on those rights. Further, the government has routinely failed to apply or enforce existing law in an effort, with employers, to keep unions out of workplaces.

For years, the ITUC has pressed the government on its substandard laws. A renewed push for robust changes to the Labour Act, as well as the labour law governing the EPZs (which prohibits unions and allows only for “worker associations”), as well as its effective application, will be central to the plan.

Second, in coordination with the relevant GUFs and solidarity organizations, ITUC will support efforts to organize in the vast garment sector, as well as in other key export-oriented industries, including the EPZs, shipbuilding, shipbreaking and seafood.

Finally, we will look to support workers' demands on wages and social protection. Wages in Bangladesh are among the lowest in the region – and actually – in the world. There are laws requiring payment of 5% of profits into a fund, the only social security workers have, but rarely respected in practice.

The ITUC will work to raise wages and ensure that all benefits which workers are owed are paid in full. Of course, many other problems need attention, from child labour to trafficking in persons. In conjunction with the local trade unions, we will keep monitoring these issues and intervening where possible.

Bangladesh: What can you do???

2013-05-22T09:24:59Z

The ITUC asks two things from all their affiliates in the aftermath of one of the biggest workplace accidents the world has seen in many years:

1. BRIEF YOUR GOVERNMENTS

Make sure you write or meet with your government to inform them of the global agreement that global unions (ITUC; IndustriALL and UNI global union) and important NGOs (Clean Clothes Campaign and Workers Rights Consortium) have made together, which many of the biggest clothing brands in the world that are producing in Bangladesh have signed.

a) Ask your government to keep pushing the Bangladesh government to respect and implement this agreement.
b) Ask your government to ask all national brands that are sourcing from Bangladesh to sign up to the agreement too.
c) Ask your government to push the Bangladesh government to reform its laws consistent with ILO standards and effectively implement them.

http://www.industriall-union.org/sites/default/files/uploads/documents/2013-05-13_-_accord_on_fire_and_building_safety_in_bangladesh.pdf#overlay-context

2. PRESSSURE GAP & WALMART

Pressure Gap and Walmart to also sign on to the agreement. Two major American brands that have not yet signed up to the agreement – both were producing in the factory that collapsed.

Write them and ask them to take their responsibility and SIGN UP NOW!
GAP Customer service mail : custserv@gap.com
GAP CEOs Email Adress Bob_fisher_ceo@gap.com
Walmart Global Ethics Office ethics@wal-mart.com

Sharan Burrow's take on Bangladesh

2013-05-22T09:20:26Z

Bangladesh is sadly one of the countries where the labour and the lives of working people are not valued. This is typical of the current model of globalisation which is not humane and not sustainable.

Globalisation in the manufacturing and service industries began to sharply accelerate in the 1980's as advances in communications and transport technology enabled companies to begin exploiting the vast global workforce on a scale which was previously impossible. Firms adopted business models based on locating production in countries where labour laws are weak, virtually non-existent or poorly enforced, and thus workers are effectively blocked from organising unions and engaging in collective bargaining with employers.

The global supply chain has become a standard means by which international brands are able to maximise revenues and continuously seek an edge on their competitors by driving production costs ever lower. So tragically but not surprisingly it has taken a fire in the Dhaka suburb Savar, which has seen the loss of more than 1200 lives, for major corporations to accept responsibility for safety.

Our heartfelt congratulations and thanks go to IndustriAll and UNI for their achievements in ensuring a strong agreement.

But there is more to be done. After years of demands from local and international union voices for labour law reform reinforced by the analysis of the deficits by the ILO Committee of Experts, the Bangladesh Government is still dragging its heels.

We demand labour law reform that meets the test of ILO standards, and you and your governments can help.

Briefing your governments on the agreement, urging their call for national brands to sign the agreement and to pressure the Bangladesh Government to reform their laws ahead of the ILC will help.

Further, Walmart and Gap must get the message that they cannot stand outside a binding agreement.

The ITUC is heading a mission to Bangladesh this week to work with our affiliates and community actors to formulate a plan for organising for labour reform and union growth. We have the ambition to propose to the General Council that Bangladesh be listed as a 'Country as Risk' target for 2014.

Ultimately, it is only unions, with the right to freedom of association and collectively bargaining, who can organise to protect workers from exploitation, to achieve safe work and fair wages and conditions. Only unions can and will hold employers and governments accountable.

Trade unions writing history with agreement on fire & safety

2013-05-22T09:17:23Z

As the race to bottom continues with consumers asking for cheaper and cheaper clothes – the workers are paying the price. For the moment some of the cheapest work forces in the textile sector are to be found in Bangladesh.

The tragic accident in Bangladesh that shocked the world when more than 1200 workers died in one of the worst workplace accidents in many years did not come to a surprise to anyone working in the textile industry on the international level.

IndustriAll (that represents the textile workers) and UNI global union (that represents the retail sector) together with some NGOs and the ITUC managed to push a lot of textile brands to sign an agreement on fire and safety. This is amazing work that hopefully will change the conditions for some of the poorest and most precarious workers in the world, and the ITUC congratulates the GUFs for this historic breakthrough.

Jyrki Raina from IndustriAll said after the launch of the agreement: “We are talking about improving the working conditions and lives of some of the most exploited workers in the world, earning $38 a month in dangerous conditions.”
The global sportswear brands have been pushed to take action for many years through the Play Fair campaign. They all adhere to one Code of Conduct or another – but all leave loopholes that keep the workers paying and paying again. Now this is true also for the high-street clothing brands.

We know from investigations in factories in nearby countries where workers have similar conditions (Play Fair reports in 2008 and 2012) that very often workers will put safety aside to make the quota and the money so they can feed their families.
We also know that the workers are not being taken seriously when leaving complaints, and often too scared even to make the complaint in the first place.

Suppliers (the factory owners) repeatedly lie to auditors that are investigating conditions and safety for the brands that are produced in their factory. However, the biggest power lies with the clothing brands that are so powerful that they in principle can ask for any conditions and force the suppliers to comply.

First to sign up to the agreement was H&M, followed by Inditex, C&A, PVH, Tchibo, Tesco, Marks & Spencer, Primark, El Corte Inglés, jbc, Mango, Carrefour, KiK, Helly Hansen, G-Star, Aldi, New Look, Mothercare, Loblaws, Sainsbury's, Benetton, N Brown Group, Stockmann, WE Europe, Esprit, Rewe, Next, Lidl, Hess Natur, Switcher, Abercrombie & Fitch, Bon Marché, John Lewis, Charles Vögele, V&D, Otto Group, s.Oliver.

UNI Global Union General Secretary, Philip Jennings, said: “Walmart, the world's largest retailer, is out of step. By not signing up, the Walmart brand sinks to a new low. We will make progress without them.”

The popular American brand Gap has not signed up either, despite professing a commitment to Labour rights and pressure from shareholders at their recent AGM.

EU must push for fundamental rights in Bangladesh garment sector

2013-05-06T13:47:21Z

The global union movement has welcomed the European Commission's commitment to press Bangladesh to meet international labour standards.

European Commissioners Catherine Ashton and Karel De Gucht made the pledge in a joint statement following the horrific building collapse in Savar, Bangladesh that has claimed some 600 lives and left many more seriously injured in one of the world's worst industrial disasters. The threat of EU action under the Generalised System of Preferences (GSP), rarely invoked, further underscores the concern.

"The EU should use its considerable leverage to encourage brands sourcing from Bangladesh to sign up to a binding and enforceable agreement on fire and building safety, in which workers and trade unions play an active role," said Jyrki Raina, General Secretary of IndustriALL Global Union.

"The industry's promotion of corporate auditing to identify and remedy problems is yet again revealed as a cruel hoax, as corporate auditor BSCI had recently certified factories operating in the Rana Plaza building," said Raina. "A voluntary approach that relies merely on corporate goodwill - which has been largely absent - would be a mistake. Promotion of more corporate auditing is no solution to the problem," said Raina.

Sharan Burrow, ITUC General Secretary, said "Once again, workers have paid with their lives for the cosy but ultimately lethal relationships between global brands, ruthless suppliers and corrupt politicians in Bangladesh. The EU must follow through on its pledge, and act to stop the sham corporate CSR industry doing any more damage."

The factories in which garments are produced in Bangladesh for the leading global retailers are well known to be death traps. The situation is made worse by the complete hostility towards trade unions by both the government and garment producers' associations in Bangladesh. The government has for years refused to register unions in the garment sector. Only due to substantial international pressure have new unions begun to receive legal recognition in the past months.

Philip Jennings, general Secretary of UNI Global Union which organises workers in the retail sector, said "UNI and its affiliates are demanding that retailers around the world sign an enforceable agreement which protects workers in Bangladesh from the unacceptable dangers of fire and building hazards and ensures these workers will have full access to the best form of health and safety protection: a union. They can't hide from their responsibility - the time to step up to a real agreement is now."

The ITUC, IndustriALL Global Union and IndustriAll European Trade Union say that the EU must also not view the situation as a safety and health matter alone. If workers have a strong union, it is far more likely that they will be able to negotiate for safer workplaces and to remove themselves from danger quickly when it arises. The EU must therefore ensure that freedom of association is at the centre of any engagement with the government. Along with this, pressure must be put on the industry and the government, to ensure that workers are paid a living wage. The government, under employer pressure, has refused to raise the $36 minimum monthly wage.

"New legislation that complies with ILO standards and the efficient registration of new unions will be vital to avoid future tragedies. The current labour code amendments recently passed by the cabinet leave many issues raised by the ILO and trade unions regarding freedom of association wholly unaddressed," said Sharon Burrow.

"The EU must also insist that those responsible for the torture and murder of trade union activist Aminul Islam last year be arrested and prosecuted without further delay," said Burrow.

Bernadette Ségol, General Secretary of the European Trade Union Confederation (ETUC) calls on the Commission to adopt a new strategy for the Corporate Social Responsibility programme 2011-2014. "We must ensure that all multinationals operating in Europe commit to respecting the International Labour Organisation's declaration on tripartite principles concerning multinational enterprises and social policy. "

A recent report by the US trade union centre AFL-CIO "Responsibility Outsourced" details the appalling track record of corporate-backed "social audit" firms, including other cases where auditors failed to act on fatally dangerous factories and helped companies with US-style union avoidance strategies.

Press contacts:

IndustriALL: Tom Grinter +41 79 6934499.
IndustriALL Europe: Luc Triangle on +32 (475) 257 236
UNI : Richard Elliot: +41 79 794 9709
ETUC: Patricia Grillo: + 32 2 224 04 30
ITUC: +32 2 224 02 04

For more information, please contact the ITUC Press Department on: +32 2 224 02 04 or +32 476 621 018

Bangladesh: Clothing Brands Attacked for Callous Indifference

2013-04-26T14:44:24Z

The ITUC has reacted angrily to the continued refusal of global clothing brands to join a union-supported workplace safety plan in Bangladesh.

The proposal was developed by unions and workers' rights NGOs and presented to companies including Wal-Mart, GAP and H&M in 2011. A renewed push after the Tazreen factory fire killed 122 workers last November still produced no agreement from companies, which complained that it would cost too much and would be legally binding.

Sharan Burrow, ITUC General Secretary, said “These huge global companies continue to show callous indifference to the lives of the thousands of workers who toil for their Bangladesh contractors and subcontractors. There have been dozens more factory fires in the months since the Tazreen tragedy, and now hundreds killed in this week's Rana Plaza building collapse. How many people will have to sacrifice their lives for the corporate bottom line before the big players in the industry finally show that they care?”

Clothing multinationals have long preferred to rely on discredited company-financed factory “audits”, which are often little more than public relations exercises. A “Responsibility Outsourced” report released by the US trade union centre AFL-CIO on 23 April revealed the abject failure of key social audit programmes to protect workers lives and ensure basic standards such as health and safety protection and the right to join unions. In one of the worst examples, the Ali Enterprises factory in Pakistan was certified by one of the major corporate social responsibility groups, Social Accountability International, just weeks before a fire there killed some 300 workers in 2012.

“The Bangladesh government must face up to its responsibilities to protect people from exploitation, ensure safe workplaces and support workers who want to join unions. But the commercial pressures from multinationals who continually seek to drive down costs, cut corners and speed up production times are also responsible. Workers did not want to enter the Rana Plaza building this week, but without a union, the company bosses were able to force them to enter a death-trap,” said Burrow.

Amirul Haque Amin, President of the National Garment Workers Federation in Bangladesh, said “This negligence must stop. The deaths of these workers could have been avoided if multinational corporations, governments and factory owners took workers' protection seriously.”

The latest figures on the Rana Plaza disaster available to the ITUC on 26 April show:

397 confirmed deaths
2044 people rescued, more than 1000 of them injured
1000 people unaccounted for or still trapped inside the concrete wreckage.

April 28: Health and Safety at Work Threatened by Workers' Lack of Voice

2013-04-25T22:30:00Z

2013 is giving us a shameful death toll in workplace fatalities and accidents. No later than Tuesday we had to deplore the deaths of over 200 Bangladeshi garment workers following the collapse of their workshop in Savar on the outskirts of Dhaka.

This tragic event takes place just days before workers across the world unite on the International Commemoration Day for Dead and Injured Workers to commemorate the victims of employers' reckless behaviour.

What happened in Savar was not an “accident”.

“We receive reports of workers dead, injured or suffering from diseases contracted at their workplaces every day – and even if chronically underreported in official statistics, experts estimate that around a million workers get injured every day! What are governments looking at? Don't they realise that there is a systemic failure when working people have to choose between their own lives and their families' bread on a daily basis?” asked Sharan Burrow, the General Secretary of the International Trade Union Confederation, one of the promoters of the Commemoration Day.

In addition to the hundreds of thousands of deaths associated with workplace accidents, we must also remember those who die from occupational diseases such as work-related cancers. The World Health Organisation estimates the annual death toll from asbestos-related diseases at 107,000 each year.

“When workers in Savar this week tried not to go back to their workplace, arguing about the risks they incurred, their claims were ignored, their voices fell on deaf ears, and this workplace became the graveyard of hundreds of their fellow colleagues,” said Burrow. “Proper union representation, training, respect and independence for occupational health and safety committees, on-the-ground knowledge of workers – these are all key for these events not to occur in the 21st century.”

Although this shocking tragedy happened in a developing context, the situation in the developed world is not improving. In the name of competitiveness and public deficit reduction, governments are implementing austerity measures that are eating away at vital regulatory instruments that protect workers and their families.

“Rather than slashing social benefits or public services, leaders should be focusing on the huge cost for the State of letting this massacre go on and focus on prevention and strong health and safety regulation and enforcement,” Burrow concluded.

Migrant workers in Qatar have no labour rights, wages are exploitative and occupational health and safety risks are extreme. Several hundred die each year, and the death and injury toll is rising as the huge 2022 World Cup gathers pace.

Through the International Workers' Memorial Day, the ITUC hopes to shed light on the crucial role played by trade unions, strong regulation and effective enforcement in securing safer workplaces.

A Google map and details of International Workers' Memorial Day events worldwide can be found on the ITUC/Hazards 28 April webpage

Notes to editors

1. Early indications suggest there will be a record number of workers in 100 countries making a stand for safety on 28 April. Activities include work stoppages, respecting a minute's silence, flash mobs, art fairs, holding training sessions, undertaking workplace inspections and taking to the streets in demonstrations.

2. There are almost 360,000 fatal occupational accidents in any year, and almost two million fatal work-related diseases. Every day, more than 960,000 workers are injured and on average 5,330 workers die because of work-related diseases.

3. The World Health Organisation's July 2010 factsheet estimates asbestos claims 107,000 lives worldwide every year. That means that at even this conservative estimate every five minutes around the clock a person dies of asbestos-related disease. ITUC news release, 14 September 2010. (http://www.ituc-csi.org/ilo-deals-the-death-knoll-for.html )

4. Regulation, employment, and the economy: Fears of job loss are overblown, EPI, April 2011. The EPI paper concluded “debates over regulations have often relied on exaggerated estimates of the compliance costs they will produce.” More related resources.

5. 'Flexible with the truth? Exploring the relationship between labour market flexibility and labour market performance, TUC, 2010.

6. The ‘union safety effect' has been demonstrated in a number of major studies, which have demonstrated safety and health improve with active workforce participation.

7. A Google map and details of International Workers' Memorial Day events worldwide can be found on the ITUC/Hazards 28 April webpages

For more information, please contact the ITUC Press Department on: +32 2 224 02 04 or +32 476 621 018