Commitment to disclosure and No Sweat purchasing

To amend the Purchasing Policy of the City of __________, in order to ensure that, when the City procures apparel, other textile goods and/or textile-related services or licenses its trademarks, the City does not contract with sweatshops.

WHEREAS it is in the interests of the City to purchase goods and services from responsible manufacturers that provide quality products and services at a competitive price;

WHEREAS the City does not want to do business with companies that compete by exploiting their workers;

WHEREAS the City purchases items of apparel, an industry in which there have been many recent reports of worker rights abuses and sweatshop conditions, such as poverty wages, excessive hours of work, discrimination, abusive treatment, child labour, and failure to provide statutory benefits;

WHEREAS the spread of sweatshop practices in the apparel and related industries threaten the jobs and working conditions of all manufacturing workers in the City of ___________;

WHEREAS sweatshop abuses flourish when the conditions of workers are hidden;

WHEREAS pressure from institutional purchasers such as governments is an effective way to combat sweatshop practices;

AND WHEREAS, the City chooses to allocate its purchasing dollars in order to enhance, rather than degrade, the economic and social well being of the City.

THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED that the City Council and the City of ______________ require all suppliers of apparel, other textile goods and/or textile-related services such as laundries and all trademark licensees to provide the names, addresses and contact information of each subcontractor and manufacturing facility to be used in the manufacture of apparel products or rendering of textile-related services to the City and its Agencies, Boards, Commissions or Authorities. This information shall be considered public information.

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that the City Council and the City of ______________ commit to the adoption of a No Sweat procurement policy within the next year.

The policy shall ensure that all aforementioned products and services purchased by the City of ______________, whether produced in Canada or abroad, are manufactured in accordance with local labour laws and international labour standards of the International Labour Organization (ILO) Conventions and United Nations (UN) Declarations regarding wages, hours of work, workplace health and safety, discrimination, forced labour, child labour and freedom of association and collective bargaining and any other relevant Conventions and Declarations.

The No Sweat procurement policy shall be developed in consultation with the City Purchasing Office, the district labour council, city employee unions and other interested community groups and citizens.