Femnet e.V.

The textile industry is a key economic sector in Tunisia. It is characterised by a strong dependence on the European market. As in the fashion industry, there are serious labour rights violations. Through fair procurement, public authorities can help to improve conditions. The FEMNET factsheet summarizes the main findings of the associated study.

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Fair Wear Foundation’s living wage strategy focuses on a step-by-step process of identifying and overcoming obstacles to the payment of living wages. Payment of a living wage – one that is sufficient to meet basic needs of workers and their families, and to provide some discretionary income – is one of FWF’s eight core labour standards, derived from United Nations and ILO norms.

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This paper examines whether the Rana Plaza disaster of 2013 has changed the approach by which German garment retailers govern their supply chains, especially with regard to labour standards issues. We analyse institutional developments and firm-level initiatives that have resulted as a response to the Rana Plaza disaster and the heightened public attention that German garment retailers have received regarding labour standards. Our analysis is based on interviews with large German garment brands and retailers as well as representatives from multi-stakeholder initiatives, Union, and NGOs and on information available in public statements by institutional initiatives and industry statistics. On the institutional level, we find that massive political attempts to regulate labour standards in global supply chains have been initiated and describe theses with regard to their aims as well as the actors involved. On the firm level, we observe a more multi-layered process, with some firms being themselves proactive regarding labour standards issues and others engaging more reluctantly in new initiatives and practices. We describe these patterns in detail and discuss them in light of the wider German institutional infrastructure in which lead firms are embedded. We contribute to a better understanding of the German garment retail sector, in particular institutional and firm-level approaches governing labour standards in global garment supply chains in light of this country’s political economy.

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The study shows that the states have so far pursued different regulatory approaches with regard to human rights due diligence on their own and are often limited to a thematic, sometimes regional, subject of due diligence. Although the requirements of care are essentially the same, they are formulated differently and have a different content. On the patchwork created in this way, legal users are faced with the challenge of having to understand and fulfil the requirements of various foreign legal systems. Transnational legal harmonisation, in particular of the core elements of due diligence, would be a facilitation for all stakeholders. Attention should be paid to a smart mix of voluntary initiatives and mandatory requirements, at national and trans-national level.

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Using qualitative data comprising interviews with multiple witnesses in 45 garment brands and retailers, and Union and other stakeholders, the authors analyze the emergence of the Action Collaboration Transformation (ACT) living wages initiative, asking how the interfirm coordination and firm-union cooperation demanded by a multifirm transnational industrial relations agreement (TIRA) developed. Synthesizing insights from the industrial relations and private governance literatures along with recent collective action theory, they identify a new pathway for the emergence of multi-firm TIRAs based on common group understandings, positive experiences of interaction and trust. The central finding is that existing union-inclusive governance initiatives provided a platform from which spillover effects developed, facilitating the formation of new TIRAs. The authors contribute a new mapping of labor governance approaches on the dimensions of inter-firm coordination and labor inclusiveness, foregrounding socialization dynamics as a basis for collective action, and problematizing the limited scalability of this mode of institutional emergence.

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