[Oeko-Tex Sees 21% Increase in Certificates and Labels] Sustainability standards certification organization Oeko-Tex said it issued more than 43,000 certificates and labels during its most recent fiscal year. The number represents a 21 percent increase for the period between July 1, 2022, and June 30, 2023 over the prior fiscal year. Among its certifications and labels, the Made in Green product label recorded the strongest growth at 52 percent. Oeko-Tex also launched two new certifications during the fiscal year that focus on cooperation with numerous parties at each level of the global supply chain. The Oeko-Tex Responsible Business certification supports textile and leather companies in preventing negative effects from their internal business operations, supply chains and broader business relationships. The certification also includes a tool that allows businesses to address due diligence requirements and increasing global expectations. The Oeko-Tex Organic Cotton program allows brands to work with a global network of certified companies from cultivation to finished product to facilitate sourcing chemicals, materials and business partners. Over the past year, Oeko-Tex also has focused on partnerships with multi-stakeholder initiatives to include as many different perspectives as possible. The organization partnered with the ZDHC Foundation in the Netherlands to promote sustainable chemical management. And Oeko-Tex became a part of the ISEAL community, a network managed by the London-based ISEAL organization, which focuses on sustainable and fair trade practices. This past fiscal year, Oeko-Tex also issued a general ban on the use of per- and polyfluorinated alkyl substances (PFAS) in textiles, leather and shoes certified by Standard 100, Leather Standard and Eco Passport. Oeko-Tex also surpassed the milestone of 1,000 STeP-certified production facilities, laying a groundwork that it says will allow it to continue to grow in the coming years. Nguồn: sourcing journal https://lnkd.in/gdqjCzMS
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[Year in Review: How 2023 Became the Year of the Garment Worker Protest] 2023 saw a groundswell of activism from the people who make the world’s clothes. While protests from garment workers and their supporters, whether in the form of picket lines, social media activations, disruptive activity, hoaxes and stunts and even litigation aren’t new or uncommon, a confluence of the post-pandemic economic fallout, untethered spikes in the cost of living, building global uncertainty, the 10th anniversary of the Rana Plaza collapse and an expansion of digital spaces has conspired to make them more visible than ever. To put it another way, workers are mad as hell and they’re not going to take it anymore. This was thrown into relief when violent demonstrations ignited across Bangladesh, where factory workers poured into the streets first to demand an increase in the long-stagnant minimum wage, then to object that the pay hike was nowhere near enough to sustain them. At least four people have died in the clashes, including three who were reportedly shot at by security forces, further inflaming tensions. Abiramy Sivalogananthan, South Asia coordinator at the Asia Floor Wage Alliance (AFWA), a workers’ rights group, noticed a bubbling up of desperation not long after Covid-19 reared its head, prompting scores of North American and European brands and retailers to leverage an emergency clause known as force majeure to suspend or outright cancel their orders at their Asian manufacturing hubs. Suppliers, many already operating on razor-thin margins because of the constant downward pressures they face from pinchpenny buyers, found themselves on the edge of insolvency, seemingly overnight. Their employees, too, forfeited whatever little financial security they had. In the three years since, most of the world’s biggest names have bounced back. Many manufacturers, however, have not, and workers are arguably worse off than ever. According to an AFWA survey of more than 2,000 garment workers across six countries, including Bangladesh, Cambodia, Indonesia and Pakistan, respondents lost on average of three months pay during 2020, leaving them unable to shell out for food or rent without racking up debt, as well as exacerbating the gender pay gap in an industry that leans heavily on toiling women. There’s a sense of deep hypocrisy, Sivalogananthan said, of brands like Nike, which one campaigner has described as the “most unresponsive,” that talk a good game about women’s empowerment yet leave the ones who produce their goods hanging by a thread. Workers at 18 Nike contractors in South and Southeast Asia reported losing some $28 million due to wage losses in 2020, even as the Just Do It company raked in $37.4 billion in profits and paid its CEO, John Donahue, $53 million the same year. … source: sourcing journal https://lnkd.in/gqHzxF6Q
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[Migrants Fleeing Myanmar Walk Tough Road Across the Border] International Migrants Day was Dec. 18. But many are left asking, “What does it change for workers whose passports have been confiscated by factory owners?” Or those that are receiving less than half their wages due? On Monday, as groups of migrants gathered at various locations around Thailand to mark the occasion, there was much to discuss, celebrate—and commiserate. Since Myanmar’s military coup in February 2021, nationals who fled the oppressive rule and illegally crossed the border into Thailand have become increasingly isolated due to a myriad of issues, and subjected to situations of hardship. In the town of Samut Sakhon, near Bangkok, for instance, there was news on local media of 10 garment workers rescued by the Myanmar Humanitarian Action Center (MHAC) who had been locked in for months by the factory owner and not allowed to leave the premises. Samut Sakhon is a major production base for food processing, garments and textiles, auto parts and rubber products. At the Sala bag sewing factory in Suphan Buri township, a little over 60 miles from the capital city, more than 300 Myanmar workers allegedly faced a situation with a factory owner for which they had to reach for help against harassment in September, according to discussions in the worker groups and labor rights organizations. (This could not independently verified by Sourcing Journal, but was affirmed by a local migrant aid human rights company). On the plus side, migrant workers did acknowledge that salaries in Thailand are almost double those in Myanmar, and that the social system does provide recognition and help in the form of support by migrant assistance centers across the country. Workers spoke of a victory last week, in a case that came up in April, in Mae Sot, in which 58 workers were awarded 9.4 million baht (approximately $270,000) in compensation for back-pay retroactively for the last two years including overtime and severance from Mai Tai factory. “We are waiting for the money to be paid. We just received the labor inspector order. Our lawyer has checked with the labor court, we found that the employer did not appeal the labor inspector order,” Raweeporn Dokmai, field coordinator, Human Rights and Development Foundation (HRDF) told Sourcing Journal. Referring to the case, she said: “Workers in Mai Tai Factory have generally been subjected to poor working conditions lower than the law, namely only one-day off a month without pay; long work hours (7:30 a.m. to 8 p.m.); low wages and illegal wage deductions.” … source: sourcing journal https://lnkd.in/gqHzxF6Q
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[AAFA Urges Cambodian Government to Crack Down on ‘Blood Bricks’ Trade] America’s fashion industry has questions about brick kilns in Cambodia. In a letter dated Dec. 18, Steve Lamar, president and CEO of the American Apparel & Footwear Association (AAFA), expressed the trade group’s “great concern” about reports that textile waste is illegally stoking what some describe as Cambodia’s “blood bricks” sector, where the building materials are churned out to support the Southeast Asian nation’s construction efforts at the cost of human rights. Kiln owners often consolidate the debts of struggling farmers, who are forced to live and work amid toxic fumes, brick dust and sweltering temperatures until they pay off what they owe, one brick at a time, according to a 2018 report from Royal Holloway, University of London. Workers with families often enlist their relatives to work off their obligations, leading to a multigenerational workforce of bonded adults and children, particularly as debts pass from parent to offspring. An investigation by Greenpeace’s Unearthed team in 2022 discovered the charred remnants of footwear and clothing from Clarks, Diesel, Michael Kors, Next, Nike, Ralph Lauren and Reebok at five kiln clusters in Cambodia even though the use of fashion scraps as cheap fuel is prohibited, both by the country’s government and according to most brands’ codes of conduct. Earlier this month, the Cambodian League for the Promotion and Defense of Human Rights (LICADHO) found pre-consumer waste belonging to Adidas, C&A, Disney, Gap, Lululemon, Primark, Under Armour and others at five operational and two permanently closed brick factories. While some of the brands named across the two probes said they were investigating the allegations, others insisted that their environmental policies and close monitoring of suppliers would preclude any mishandling of textile waste. Even more did not return emails requesting comment. LICADHO said that the practice of burning garment waste, which can release poisonous pollutants into the air if improperly handled, causing respiratory distress, headaches and other ailments, has increased in recent years, and that the Cambodian government’s “haphazard” labor inspections of kilns, with zero accountability or known prosecutions for debt bondage and other violations, have failed to curb the human rights and environmental abuses. One follow-up survey by Royal Holloway and a local workers’ union found that 23 out of 465 kilns collectively incinerated several hundred tons of castoff fashion per day. “The continued burning of garment waste in Cambodian brick factories is hurting brick factory workers, children, communities and the environment,” Naly Pilorge, LICADHO’s outreach director, told Sourcing Journal. “This shameful practice has been publicly documented for years, and it is shocking that international garment brands have failed to end it for good.” … source: sourcing journal https://lnkd.in/gqHzxF6Q
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