Honouring Heroes of the Anti-Sweatshop Movement

For many years, the Maquila Solidarity Network (MSN) singled out retailers and brands with the worst record of worker rights abuses in their global supply chains by honouring them with the annual “Sweatshop Retailer of the Year” awards.

This year, as 2007 comes to a close, we want to recognize the heroes rather than the villains in the global garment industry – the grass roots labour, women’s and human rights organizations that defend the rights of the young women and men who labour behind the brand-name labels making our clothes.

In 2007, MSN worked in close collaboration with many labour and women’s rights organizations around the world. We’d like to pay special tribute to three of those organizations, each of which has struggled against overwhelming odds to achieve improvements in workers’ lives.

Moving into 2008

It has been an honour to work closely with the Human and Labour Rights Commission of the Tehuacan Valley (Mexico), the Workers Assistance Center (Philippines), SEDEPAC (Mexico) over the past year on joint campaigns and other initiatives to defend worker’s rights and support their organizing efforts for improved wages and working conditions.

Looking forward to 2008, we at MSN pledge to redouble our efforts. We will continue to work in close collaboration with the local labour, women’s and human rights organizations that are the heart and soul of the global anti-sweatshop movement in order to achieve our common goal – a global garment industry free of exploitation where all workers are treated with dignity and respect.