Resources
Latest reports and statements (PDF)
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September 17, 2019
Fig Leaf for Fashion - summary briefing
This summary briefing sums up the main findings and recommendations of the September 2019 Fig Leaf for Fashion report on how the social auditing industry protects brands' reputations rather than workers' lives and thus fails workers by design.
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September 17, 2019
Fig Leaf for Fashion. How social auditing protects brands and fails workers
This September 2019 report offers an extensive analysis of the corporate controlled audit industry, connecting the dots between the most well known business-driven social compliance initiatives, such as Social Accountability International, WRAP, the FLA, and amfori BSCI, and the largest corporate-controlled auditing firms, including Bureau Veritas, TÜV Rheinland, UL, RINA, and ELEVATE, as well as the brand interests that they serve. Evidence presented throughout the report clearly shows how the social audit industry has failed spectacularly in its proffered mission of protecting workers’ safety and improving working conditions. Instead, it has protected the image and reputation of brands and their business models, while standing in the way of more effective models that include mandatory transparency and binding commitments to remediation.
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September 11, 2019
On the seventh anniversary of the Ali Enterprises anniversary, garment workers in Pakistan still risk their lives in unsafe factories. This report released in September 2019 called for a worker-led labour-brand safety accord in Pakistan, based upon the lessons learned by the Bangladesh Accord.
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July 2, 2019
At least 28 workers were confirmed dead as of 27 June after the collapse of a seven-storey building in Sihanoukville Province, Cambodia. In the aftermath of the deadly collapse over 100 civil society organizations and human rights defenders jointly released this statement, calling upon the Government of Cambodia and private developers to take immediate action for a long-term solution to prevent similar tragedies. The statement includes a set of recommendations.
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June 5, 2019
Tailored Wages 2019: The state of pay in the global garment industry
No major clothing brand is able to show that workers making their clothing in Asia, Africa, Central America or Eastern Europe are paid enough to escape the poverty trap, according this June 2019 research report, which analyses responses from 20 top clothing brands about their progress in implementing a living wage for the workers who produce their clothes. Whilst 85% of brands had some commitment to ensuring wages were enough to support workers’ basic needs, no brand was putting this into practice for any worker in countries where the vast majority of clothing is produced. The report covers Adidas, Amazon, C&A, Decathlon, Fast Retailing, Fruit of the Loom, GAP, G-Star RAW, Gucci, H&M, Hugo Boss, Inditex, Levi Strauss & Co., Nike, Primark, Puma, PVH, Tchibo, Under Armour, and Zalando.
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April 2, 2019
Bangladesh Government's Safety Inspection Agencies Not Ready to Take Over Accord's Work
The government of Bangladesh is using proceedings before the Supreme Court of Bangladesh to prevent the Accord on Fire and Building Safety from operating, thereby putting workers’ safety at risk. The government’s justification for trying to end the Accord’s work depends entirely on its claim that the government is ready to assume responsibility for the 1,688 factories under the Accord’s purview, but this research published 2 April 2019 by the Accord’s NGO witness signatories – Clean Clothes Campaign, International Labor Rights Forum, Maquila Solidarity Network, and Worker Rights Consortium – shows a shocking level of unreadiness.
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October 10, 2018
Less than two months remain until the Bangladesh High Court’s decision to lift the restraining order against the Accord is set to expire, which would force the premature cessation of the Accord’s inspection program in Bangladesh. The purpose of this statement is to outline our expectations for company signatories should this occur and actions we believe can and should be immediately taken by company signatories, even at this late stage, to prevent this from happening. The only way to prevent the premature departure of the Accord’s inspection program from Bangladesh – and the dangerous consequences to worker safety as well as brands’ own finances and reputation it would bring – is for signatory brands to take immediate action. Details of the above-mentioned scenario, as well as our recommendations for how to avoid it, are outlined below
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April 24, 2018
Employment Injury Insurance in Bangladesh: Bridging the Gap
[April 2018] Despite being the second largest exporter of clothing, and the location of some of the worst recent factory disasters, Bangladesh is one of only a handful of countries that entirely fails to provide for a national employment injury scheme for workers who are injured in private workplaces. This position paper makes the case for swift action to put in place a national employment injury insurance system in Bangladesh, with a bridging solution to serve as a stepping stone and to support workers and their families affected by factory incidents since the Rana Plaza collapse.
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April 16, 2018
Five years since the Rana Plaza collapse: What has happened in the field of prevention and remedy?
[April 2018] On 24 April 2013, the world watched in astonishment and shame as horror of the Rana Plaza building collapse was broadcast across the world’s media. This was where the race to the bottom had led the garment industry: factories housed in unsafe buildings and workers afraid to enter a workplace with visible cracks in the walls, but even more afraid to lose their wages if they refused. The Rana Plaza collapse was a moment in which all pledged to do better and to start respecting the lives of the women and men working long hours for low pay to make our clothes. Five years on, we take stock. This memo aims to give an overview of the promises made in 2013, and what has – and has not – changed following the world’s worst ever garment factory disaster. It also serves as a guide to the excellent pieces of research that have become available at this moment of retrospection for labour rights in the garment industry.
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