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The H&M group is one of the world’s largest retailers with 4,801 shops worldwide. In November 2013, H&M announced that all ‘H&M’s strategic suppliers should have pay structures in place to pay a fair living wage by 2018. By then, this will reach around 850 000 textile workers.” At the time, those workers made 60% of H&M’s products, sourced from ‘strategic and preferred suppliers’ which H&M grades as gold or platinum. With H&M’s deadline nearing, Clean Clothes Campaign set out to check what workers were making in some of those supplier factories, and how close that was to a living wage. In our understanding, a living wage should be earned in a standard working week and allow the garment worker and her/his family to cover basic needs: Food to meet nutritional needs, housing, healthcare, clothing, transportation and education, plus 10% discretionary income for savings, or protection in case of the unexpected. Our researchers spoke with 62 workers in Bulgaria, Turkey, India and Cambodia. This document highlights their key findings as well as some additional facts that shed light on H&M’s supply chain and the brand’s progress in implementing its commitments.

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Although many studies have been conducted in recent years related to the working conditions and human rights violations of workers in the garment manufacturing industry, there is a lack of specific information on workwear manufacturing units. As workwear for European brands is produced in India, among others, the objective of this research is to investigate the labour and international human rights standards in workwear producing factories in India. Workwear manufacturing is an emerging sector in the global garment industry as well as in India. The majority of Indian workwear production is meanwhile being exported to European countries (Technopak Advisors, 2013). According to our research, the nature of employment in this sector is often informal and contractual and with little job security. Wages are low, minimum wages are violated and workers are not paid according to their skills or grade of employment. There are rampant violations related to working hours, overtime, maternal benefits, leave, employment contracts and entitlements. There is an urgent need to take measures to improve the working conditions in these factories and to strictly implement labour laws.

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The ways in which women's engagement in paid work shapes their experiences of violence in the home and workplace is widely debated, especially in Bangladesh, but rarely considered together. We undertook 23 in-depth interviews with female garment workers living in slums in Bangladesh, and nine interviews with key informants (factory managers and supervisors, male workers, and employees from non-governmental organizations). Data came from two studies conducted in Dhaka, Bangladesh – the first between August and September 2011 and the second between June and August 2015 - and were identified using thematic analysis. In both settings, women experienced similar forms of violence, including emotional, physical, sexual, and economic, though from different perpetrators. Despite violence in the home and violence in the workplace simultaneously being considered separately, we identify four overlaps between them. First, violence in both settings is shaped by how patriarchal norms and structures of institutions intersect with institutions economic structures. Second, Dominant Representations of Female Garment Workers as Sex Workers or Sexually Promiscuous Violence Against Them. Third, economic violence is used as a way to control and limit women's autonomy. Fourth, women develop strategies to continue working and maximize the benefits of work for themselves. Finally, we suggest how interventions could work to prevent violence in the home and workplace.

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Despite more than two decades of private voluntary approaches to address workers’ rights abuses in apparel supply chains, workers in the lower production tiers continue to face poor working conditions and chronic violations of their rights. Bangladesh has been emblematic of low wages, poor working conditions, union-avoidance, and a series of mass fatality disasters in garment factories, culminating in the collapse of Rana Plaza in 2013. With the five-year anniversary of the catastrophe approaching, the question arises as to whether the intervening years have seen meaningful gains for workers.

This report finds that gains have been severely limited in regard to wages, overtime hours, and work intensity in part due to the sourcing practices of the brands and retailers that sit at the top of global supply chains. A partial exception is in the area of associational rights, where, in the aftermath of Rana Plaza, pressure from the European Union, the United States, and international organizations agreed in minor pro-union labor reforms. These reforms, combined with the tenacity of workers and their organizing efforts, resulted in an increase in the number of recognized Union. However, in recent years, Union growth has once again stagnated, indicating the need for continued international pressure and for an expansion of the capacity of garment sector Union. This report finds one area where gains for workers have been dramatic: building safety. This is the result of an ambitious binding agreement, the Accord on Fire and Building Safety in Bangladesh. The Accord, which imposes constraints and obligations on global firms that are absent from traditional voluntary CSR schemes, has overseen a massive program of safety renovations and upgrades.

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The country profile provides basic information on the clothing industry and wage situation in Serbia. In terms of wages, average wages, minimum wages and subsistence wages are discussed. The country profile shows wage-related labour and human rights violations and formulates demands to remedy them. It summarises the results of an on-site investigation.

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