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The Vietnamese garment industry is the country’s second largest exporting industry, following electronics, and accounts for 15 percent of the country’s GDP and 20.77 percent of its total exports in 2014. The U.S is the biggest market for garments from Vietnam, while Japan and the EU come second and third, respectively. According to the International Labour Organisation’s (ILO) Convention 87 on Freedom of Association and ILO Convention 98 on Protection of the Right to Organise, Vietnam has not ratified worker’s rights. Freedom of association remains the most challenging problem for Vietnam. Workers are not allowed to establish independent trade union of their choice, as all enterprise union must be affiliated to the Vietnam General Confederation of Labour, the only recognized union in the country. At the grassroots level, it is common to find enterprise union leadership encouraged by high-ranking managers and collective bargaining agreements that are copied from the labour legislation.

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The collapse of the Rana Plaza building in Bangladesh in April, 2013 resulting in the death and injury of more than 2000 workers from the country’s export garment industry was one of the worst industrial disasters in recorded history. The Tragedy Galvanized: A Range of Stakeholders to Take Action to Prevent Future Disasters. Prominent in these efforts were two multi-stakeholder agreements which brought together lead buyers, trade union and NGOs in a concerted effort to improve health and safety conditions in the industry. These initiatives represent a move away from the buyer-driven compliance-based model that continues to dominate CSR to what is being described as a ‘cooperation-based’ model, which brings together multiple stakeholders who affect, and are affected, by the business operations of lead multinational corporations (MNCs) in global value chains. This paper is concerned with the experiences and perceptions of workers with regard to these new initiatives. It examines competing interpretations of stakeholder analysis within the CSR literature and uses these to frame its key research question: Has the shift from compliance to co-operation as the basis of CSR been a promising way forward or merely a shift in rhetoric? We use a survey of garment workers to explore the extent to which these initiatives have brought about improvements in wages and working conditions in the garment industry, where progress has been slowest and why.

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A comparison of Bangladesh, Ethiopia and Myanmar shows that the social and labour law situation of women in the clothing industry is precarious in all three countries. This is reflected both in the four thematic areas of the ILO core labour standards and in other labour standards (CLS+). In addition, the social position of women in political, economic, social and cultural terms is weak in all countries. A central aspect for all three countries, not only for workers, are the non-living wages. However, due to their history, culture, tradition, political and economic situation, the concrete social and labour law and practical conditions in the countries are to be considered quite differently and differentiated: Bangladesh is not good at gender equality, civil society freedom and political rights, but better than Ethiopia and Myanmar. Ethiopia is in the middle in terms of anti-corruption and protection of collective labour rights, while it performs poorly in terms of civil society freedom and the granting of political rights. For Myanmar, the available values are incomplete. It cannot distinguish itself positively from the other two countries in any of the social dimensions examined. However, Myanmar is currently the country with the most dynamic (positive) development in terms of social and democratic aspects. Ethiopia has ratified all eight ILO core labour standards, Bangladesh seven, Myanmar only three.

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The state of Tamil Nadu is the largest producer of cotton yarn in India and a global sourcing hub for readymade garments in recent years. The Spinning Mill Industry is of Major Importance: Tthe State and Tthe National Economy. A publication by the Tamil Nadu government claims that India is the world's largest cotton yarn producer after China, responsible for a little over one-fifth of yarn production worldwide. 35 t40% of this yarn is produced in Tamil Nadu, which is home tapproximately 1,600 mills employing between 200,000 and 400,000 workers. 30% of this yarn is used in the export factories in Tamil Nadu, whproduce for brands like C&A, H&M, Marks and Spencer, Primark, Walmart, Zara and a lot of other brands.An unknown share of this yarn is used in other garment hubs in India that produce garments for the export. Yarn produced in Tamil Nadu is alsused for the domestic market and for the production of exported home textiles. Furthermore, a 2012 estimation suggests that over 20% of the production is exported directly tgarment producing countries like Bangladesh and China.Previous SOMand ICN research identified five factories under the Bangladesh Accord for Building and Fire Safety whsource from twspinning mills in Tamil Nadu. Seven if your shirt is not ‘Made in India’, the yarn might be. The India Committee of the Netherlands has worked with SOM(Centre for Research on Multinational Corporations) and with Mondiaal FNV for several years now tdraw attention tthe deplorable working conditions in the Tamil Nadu mills.

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A Levi Strauss & Co. study, initiated in 2013, looked at three products: a pair of Levi’s® 501® jeans, a pair of Levi’s® Women’s jeans, and a pair of Dockers® Signature Khakis. This latest study benefitsed from the latest advancements in life cycle assessment scientific methods, tools and data collection processes and gives greater insight into the two biggest impact areas (cotton cultivation and consumer care) by expanding the scope of data collected.

This presentation dives deeply into the findings related to a pair of Levi’s® 501® medium stone wash jeans. The goal is that these findings will help LS&Co. and others in the apparel sector take more effective and holistic approaches to our industry’s environmental impact.

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