April 19, 2012

As we were finishing up the copy for this issue of the Update, we received the tragic news that Aminul Islam, a senior organizer with the Bangladesh Garment and Industrial Workers' Federation (BGIWF) and Bangladesh Center for Workers' Solidarity (BCWS), was found dead on April 5 outside Dhaka. It is widely believed that Aminul was murdered because of his defence of garment workers' rights.

We at MSN extend our heart-felt condolences to Aminul's family and to his colleagues at both BGIWF and BCWS. Over the coming months we will be working closely with Bangladeshi and international labour rights organizations to gain justice for this horrific act and to ensure labour rights advocates in Bangladesh are able to carry out their essential work without fearing for their lives.

Aminul's death overshadows the good news we wanted to share with you in this issue - the signing of a ground-breaking agreement between PVH Corp and Bangladeshi and international trade unions and labour rights NGOS, including MSN, to establish a transparent and effective factory safety inspection program in Bangladesh (see article on page 3).

Aminul and his colleagues worked hard to bring attention to the deplorable conditions in Bangladeshi garment factories, including poor health and safety practices that led to the deadly factory fires. Apparel brands and major retailers who source from Bangladesh need to do justice to Aminul's legacy by taking concrete steps to ensure the well-being of workers in that country, including participating in the safety inspection program.

Another story that has figured prominently in the news in recent months was the decision of tech giant Apple to join the Fair Labor Association (FLA) and cooperate with an FLA investigation of three of its supplier factories in China owned by the Taiwanese multi-national Foxconn. The headline story in this issue of the Update examines the findings of that investigation and highlights some of the new commitments made by Foxconn and Apple, as well as critical workplace problems that are absent from the report.

Full disclosure: I represent MSN as an NGO delegate on the FLA Board of Directors. While MSN did not oppose Apple being accepted into the FLA, we did voice our concerns about the haste with which that decision was made and the investigation launched without sufficient prior consultation with labour rights groups that have been documenting abuses and pressuring Apple to correct them for a number of years.

While it's too early to tell whether Apple's commitments and the FLA's oversight will translate into improvements for workers, the labour rights movement is now on alert. Over the coming months MSN will be collaborating with other labour rights organizations to monitor whether Foxconn and Apple made good on their commitments and address the outstanding issues that were not adequately dealt with in the FLA report.

Lynda Yanz
for the MSN team

Download the April edition of the Maquila Solidarity Update