Engagement and Campaigning - 2012 Highlights

June 27, 2013

MSN works at the international level to identify and promote industry-wide solutions to systemic problems in global supply chains and to promote both voluntary and regulatory approaches to reverse the ”race to the bottom” on wages, working conditions and workers’ rights.

Some 2012 highlights:

MSN collaborated with international allies – the Global Union for garment workers (IndustriALL), the Worker Rights Consortium (WRC), the Clean Clothes Campaign (CCC), the International Labor Rights Forum (ILRF), and eight Bangladeshi unions and NGOs – to gain agreement from two international apparel brands – PVH Corp and Tchibo – to sign a precedent-setting factory fire and building safety agreement that set the stage for the 2013 Accord on Fire and Building Safety in Bangladesh. MSN continues to work to bring additional companies into the safety program that is the outcome of that process.

MSN took the lead in obtaining the endorsement of international apparel brands sourcing from Guatemala on a joint letter to the Guatemalan government urging it to resolve long-standing worker rights issues that were the subject of a CAFTA labour rights complaint. Guatemalan human rights and labour organizations saw the letter as a rare example of successful constructive engagement with the major US apparel brands.

MSN continued to chair the Mexico Committee of the Americas Group, which brings together major apparel brands, labour rights NGOs and the Global Union for garment workers (formerly ITGLWF, now IndustriALL). In 2012, MSN was successful in convincing a number of apparel brands involved in the Committee to acknowledge that the existence of an Employer Protection Contract in a Mexican supplier factory is a violation of freedom of association that requires corrective action, and to commit to proactive steps to support FOA in Mexico.

MSN co-sponsored a multi-stakeholder forum in Lima, Peru on the problem of precarious work, specifically the use of consecutive short-term employment contracts that denies workers their rights and government regulations that permit these practices. The forum was co-sponsored with the AFL-CIO Solidarity Center, the ITGLWF, and the Peruvian NGO PLADES. Participants in the forum included the two major Peruvian union federations active in the sector, the Ministry of Labour, five international apparel brands, and 10 Peruvian suppliers. A civil society meeting following the forum developed a list of proposals to brands, garment manufacturers and the Peruvian government on how to address the problem of precarious work in Peru. The forum in Peru was followed by a multi-stakeholder meeting in Washington DC on responses to precarious work in the Americas.