» Update: The death toll at Rana Plaza exceeds 1,100. Many European retailers have joined the Bangladesh Fire and Building Safety Agreement, while US retailers like Gap and Walmart continue to refuse. See news at NY Times and LA Times, and take action here.  (May 17)

» Update 4/24: The Clean Clothes Campaign reports that Ran Plaza produced for multinational brands including Walmart, Primark, Mango, KIK and C&A. (April 24)

San Francisco, CA- The 2,700 former workers of the PT Kizone International factory and their union have signed an agreement with the Adidas Group. Two years after PT Kizone, the Indonesian factory where they worked, closed without paying legally mandated severance, the former workers will receive a substantial sum from Adidas. The agreement is expected to settle an ongoing lawsuit with the University of Wisconsin and a student campaign in the US.

Dear supporter,

As chair of the coordinating committee of the International Union League for Brand Responsibility, I am thrilled to take this moment to share some important updates with our friends and allies. In the past three months, your moral and economic support has strengthened garment workers across the globe as we launch an effort without precedent and that we believe is our best hope for ending sweatshop exploitation.

We hope to provide an update to you quarterly, along with occasional urgent news and requests for action. Please do not hesitate to contact our coordinating committee at [email protected].

Today we express our solidarity with dock workers in Hong Kong. Their employer Hong Kong International Terminals has effectively banned these workers from continuing a courageous strike in order to refuse collective bargaining over unsafe conditions and poverty pay. Dock workers form a crucial part of the supply chain of the multinational corporations for whom we produce.

You can send your own protest letter to the employers and solidarity letter to workers via the International Transport Workers’ Federation.

Below is our letter to their employers.

Originally published in Counterpunch Magazine:

A Contract to End Sweatshops:
Time to Abolish the More Grotesque Excesses of Capitalist Exploitation

by ASHOK KUMAR

On February 10th, as activists in Manhattan boisterously protested the New York Fashion Week brand Adidas runway, factory-level union producing Adidas clothing in Indonesia, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, Haiti, India, Cambodia, Bangladesh, Guatemala and the Dominican Republic were delivering a letter to their bosses. The letter announced the formation of the International League for Brand Responsibility and demanded that Adidas agree to collectively negotiate a Jobbers Agreement with workers. Such an agreement would circumvent subcontracted factory owners to negotiate with brands around issues such as wages, conditions and union recognition. The announcement represents a rebirth of a historic tactic for the globalized garment sector, and a watershed moment for global labor rights.

Today workers from around the world released this powerful declaration. We announce the formation of a new global campaign to unite workers across the supply chains of multinational corporations to finally put an end to sweatshops.

Read the declaration below, or download it as a PDF in any of the following languages:

• English
• Español (Spanish)
• ಕನ್ನಡ (Kannada) - Unicode | Nudi/ASCII2
• العربية (Arabic)
• Bahasa Indonesia
• বাংলা (Bengali)
• 简体中文 (Simplified Chinese)
• 繁体中文 (Traditional Chinese)
• Français (French)
• Português (Portuguese)
  

Today, workers producing clothing for Montreal-based Gildan Activewear took action in Haiti, Honduras, Nicaragua and the Dominican Republic to protest labor abuses. The activities kicked off a new regional coordination between these workers, called the Gildan Union Network.

See a press release below after the slideshow of photos from today's action.