CCC Work

#PayYourWorkers is a campaign endorsed by 260 trade unions and labour rights organizations worldwide. During the pandemic, 10% of the apparel workers have been laid off and millions have not received wages for months, losing more than 11 billion euros in wages. This campaign urges brands to end wage theft for garment workers in the global supply chain by suggesting a 3-pillar legally binding agreement, including 1) brands should pay garment workers full wages for the duration of the pandemic; 2) signing a negotiated severance guarantee fund to make sure workers not left penniless when factories go bankrupt and 3) Protect worker's rights to protest and bargain collectively.

#RespectLabourRights is an objective of the #PayYourWorkers campaign. Brands, retailers and e-tailers choose to source from countries with minimal social protection systems and poverty-level minimum wages in order to maximize profits. The right to freedom of association and collective bargaining helps to protect workers. Millions of workers become extremely vulnerable when labour laws are attacked and, during Covid-19, plant closures targeted unionised factories. It is reasonable for brands to bear the financial consequences instead of forcing workers to shoulder the companies’ burden.

Not only should brands ensure that workers receive their full wages during the pandemic and severance owed to them if they lose their jobs, but they must protect workers’ right to organize and bargain collectively.

Recent example: In October 2022 at Pou Chen, a factory in Myanmar supplying adidas, 400 workers went on strike calling for an increase in wages and for management to respect their rights. Workers were intimidated and threatened, and 26 workers, including 16 members of the union, were fired for organising the strike.

After the Rana Plaza disaster in 2013, when over 1,130 garment workers died when a five-storey factory building in Bangladesh collapsed, the Accord on Fire and Building Safety in Bangladesh was established. More than 200,000 potential death traps in 1,600 factories in Bangladesh have been fixed in the 9 years since the Accord was implemented. Crucially, the Accord is a legally-binding agreement which holds brands to account for safety violations in their supply chains. Due to the significant progress in safety in Bangladeshi garment factories, the International Accord came into effect in 2021 as the successor of the Accord.