Advocacy - 2013 Highlights | maquilasolidarity.org

May 9, 2014

MSN facilitates dialogue between our southern partners and international brands in order to push the brands to find solutions to systemic problems in their supplier factories.

Some 2013 highlights:

Precarious Employment in Peru

MSN continued to support the efforts of three Peruvian garment union federations and the labour rights NGO PLADES to win changes in Peruvian laws that allow employers to use consecutive short-term employment contract to deny workers their legal rights and benefits. MSN worked with six international apparel brands – New Balance, Nike, PVH Corp, VF Corporation, 47 Brand, Life Is Good – to draft a Joint Open Letter that was sent to the Peruvian president on March 6, urging his government to repeal the long-standing legal decree that allows rampant abuse of short-term contracting. According to the union federations FNTTP, CGTP and FTTP, the Open Letter “represents a huge support for the workers in their struggle to repeal an unjust special labour regime.”

The March 6 brand letter opened the door for constructive engagement between Peruvian union federations in the garment sector and the labour rights NGO PLADES and brands sourcing apparel from Peru. Following the release of the letter, the union federations and the AFL-CIO Solidarity Center in Peru sent a formal communication to the brands in requesting that they take additional steps to ensure that their Peruvian suppliers abide by their code of conduct provisions that prohibit abuses of short-term employment contracts.

A November workshop for suppliers of PVH and New Balance and a brand-labour dialogue meeting the following day have opened up new possibilities for these and other brands to work with their suppliers to eliminate code and legal violations associated with the use of short-term employment contracts.

Freedom of Association Pilot (FoA) Training Project

In collaboration with the brand and labour members of the Mexico Committee[1] and the Fair Labor Association (FLA), MSN moved forward on the design and preparation for a pilot training project on freedom of association in Mexico for workers and management personnel. In collaboration with the Guatemalan independent monitoring organization COVERCO and the FLA, MSN revised the Spanish-language Reference Document for trainers and produced a shorter English version for brands. MSN also contracted a Mexican labour rights expert to review the resource materials and participate in the pilot training, together with Homero Fuentes of COVERCO. Read more on Freedom of Association in Mexico.

In December, the Mexico Committee approved a MSN proposal for an internal training for brand members of the Committee to take place in June 2014 in preparation for a supplier summit on FoA and other related labour rights issues for senior management personnel from a number of their supplier factories in Mexico.

[1] The Mexico Committee is a sub-committee of the Americas Group, a multi-stakeholder forum seeking solutions to systemic labour rights issues in garment-producing countries in the Americas.