Global brands shirk responsibility for further wage hike

Alleges Clean Clothes Campaign

FE Team | Published: March 30, 2024 22:11:23

FE Report
The Clean Clothes Campaign (CCC) has alleged that global brands attempted to avoid their responsibility for further wage hike and legal threats Bangladeshi garment workers are facing due to wage protests.
The CCC, a global platform of labour unions in garment and textile industry, said in a statement issued on Thursday that in the wake of the 'fundamentally flawed' Bangladesh minimum wage protest of 2023 that led to the setting of another poverty wage, Bangladesh government cracked down hard on worker protests.
Criminal charges, often filed by suppliers to major international brands, are now hanging over the heads of tens of thousands of workers, it said.
"Yet, through recent industry statements, brands attempt to wash their hands of the responsibility for both the setting of yet another wage that leaves workers unable to put enough food on the table and of the legal threats now facing them," it noted.
In February and early March, 45 major fashion and sportswear brands, including H&M, Zara, Next, North Face (VF Corp) and Gap, received communication from organisations within the CCC network.
They demanded that they compel their Bangladeshi suppliers to drop these baseless criminal charges filed against workers and labour leaders during the 2023 protests calling for a higher minimum wage.
"Until Thursday, only a handful of brands have met this request to respect their workers' basic human rights, by pressuring their suppliers to take such action."
The vast majority of brands have shirked responsibility by falsely claiming that their suppliers aren't involved, defending their suppliers' filing of criminal cases, and/or denying that the charges are being used as a tool of systematic retaliation against workers who demonstrated for higher wages, or not answering at all.
Many others stated that their sole response was to involve the American Apparel and Footwear Association (AAFA) or the Ethical Trading Initiative (ETI) to issue a joint statement on their behalf.
It alleged that in the statements, the AAFA and the ETI omitted that their concerns about the mass criminalisation of garment workers were in response to a push from rights groups directed at their member brands - many of which continue to take little action to compel their suppliers to drop false charges as a condition of continuing business with them.
While both groups directed their calls to stop the criminalisation of workers to the Bangladesh government, most criminal cases, at least 26, have been filed by factory owners producing for AAFA and ETI member brands, not the police who have filed at least 6, the CCC noted.
In this context, unless AAFA and ETI members require their suppliers to withdraw cases, the notes of concern ring hollow, it said.
Filing baseless criminal cases that accuse workers generically, and without individualised evidence, of inciting vandalism and other serious crimes is a page from the well-worn playbook used by the Bangladesh government and garment factory owners to repress freedom of association and maintain poverty wages in the industry.
These charges against unnamed workers pose a threat to any worker who steps out of line, even with the increase to a monthly wage of 12,500 BDT ($113), Bangladeshi workers earn among the lowest wages in the world, less than neighbouring Pakistan and India, and even less than Cambodia and Indonesia.
The refusal of international brands, garment manufacturers in Bangladesh, and the country's government to meaningfully support an increase in the legal minimum wage to a sustainable level for workers and their families led to a wave of labour protests during last year's minimum wage setting process that takes place every five years.
Both manufacturers and the government responded to the workers' demand with harsh and violent repression which saw four workers killed, hundreds injured, and 40,000 at risk of false arrest under at least 35 baseless criminal charges that left dozens of workers jailed for months, including four union leaders, the CCC noted.
Brands' failure to protect workers' basic rights, despite the clear threat of violent repression, constituted the industry's tacit approval of the excessive response to these protests - a response that was predictable given the similar repression against workers that took place during the last minimum wage setting process in 2018.
"These cases are being brought based not on facts, or to hold individuals accountable for criminal activity, but rather, to intimidate and discourage dissent," the CCC said.
The four workers who died produced for international brands, including H&M, Zara, C&A, Bestseller and Walmart.
Each of these brands has thus far refused to provide compensation for the families that these workers have left behind, instead pointing to the paltry compensation already received of around $4,500 as being sufficient despite falling far short of the international norms (ILO C121) used in the wake of the deadly Rana Plaza disaster.
Bogu Gojdz, public outreach coordinator from the CCC, said: "Brands have a chance to make up for their silence during the workers' wage struggle to at least sure that workers will not go to jail for standing up for their right to a wage they can survive on, most are still refusing to act."
Some brands have used their leverage with suppliers to ensure cases are dropped, but most act like protecting freedom of association is irrelevant, it noted.
It called on brands that they have time until April 8, saying that they will be publicly releasing a tracker of how they (brands) have responded.
munni_fe@yahoo.com