News - 2023

links: Zehra Khan (Foto: Patricia Carney) | rechts: Nasir Mansoor (Foto: Sina Marx)

One Year German Supply Chain Act: Speakers Tour on Working Conditions in Pakistan

The German Supply Chain Act (LkSG), which came into force on 1 January 2023, obliges companies to ensure compliance with labour rights in their value chains. One year after the law came into force, members of the Pakistani trade unions NTUF and HBWWF will come to Germany to discuss which human rights are still not being implemented in the value chains of German companies.

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© NGWF

Minimum wage talks in Bangladesh on the verge of collapse? Employers propose outrageously low wage of 89 euros, while many fashion brands still remain silent

Fears are growing that ongoing wage negotiations for the Bangladesh garment industry could result in a new poverty wage of only about 89 euros per month (10,400 taka), based on an outrageous proposal put forward by employers* at the last meeting of the wage committee. Unions and labor rights organizations reject this brazen attempt to keep workers trapped in poverty. The low wage proposal is the result of the unwillingness of major fashion brands to actively support workers* in their struggle for decent wages.

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© FEMNET

Don't RMG workers deserve a dignified life?

Taslima Akhter

Over 40 lakh of the workers in our country's readymade garments sector are waiting for a welcome change. Whether that change will come and bring relief is still in question. On one side, we have the workers protesting for a minimum wage of Tk 25,000, and on the other, those in power are concocting ways to thwart this mission.

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© Nandita Shivakumar

Women workers transform Tamil Nadu factories in fight against gender-based violence

Across the garment industry, a majority-women workforce labours in plants owned and managed by men. A new report sheds light on gender-based violence in textile factories in India’s southernmost region.

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MIND THE GAP - Current study on the situation of women textile workers in Bangladesh.

FEMNET partner organisation investigates prevailing working conditions and wage practices in garment manufacturing, and designs a fairer wage structure.

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© FEMNET

FEMNET and the Clean Clothes Campaign support Bangladeshi unions in their 23,000 Taka minimum wage hike demand

For the first time in five years, the Bangladeshi government has formed a Wage Board to revise the minimum wage for the country’s RMG sector which employs roughly 4 million workers. The current minimum wage of 8,000 taka (roughly 65 Euro) was already insufficient for a decent living when it came into force in 2019. Since then, workers had to endure the additional pressure of the Covid-19 pandemic and the subsequent high inflation without seeing their wages increase at all.

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© CIVIDEP, India

What changes await workers, brands & suppliers in readymade garment sector: Karnataka Factories Act Amendments

In the Indian state of Karnataka, with its textile industry stronghold Bengaluru, drastic changes to an important labor law are about to be implemented. The so-called Factories Bill 2023, Karnataka Amendment replaces a previously applicable standard. Important labor law achievements such as the abolition of night shifts or the introduction of the 8-hour day are to be repealed. The amended law is intended to give suppliers more leeway to respond more flexibly to order situations. The labor rights organization Cividep expects a significant deterioration in working conditions for thousands of female employees.

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First complaint case filed under German Supply Chain Act

Joined press release by FEMNET, NGWF and ECCHR

Bonn/Berlin. "10 years after Rana Plaza, there are still factories in Bangladesh producing clothes for international corporations like Amazon, IKEA or Tom Tailor, where there are hardly any safety checks. We can no longer accept this," says Amirul Haque Amin, president and co-founder of the National Garment Workers Federation (NGWF).

FEMNET, ECCHR and NGWF file the first complaint on the basis of the Supply Chain Act which came into force in January 2023 with the Federal Office of Economics and Export Control. The complaint is based on a research conducted in Bangladesh in March 2023 by the trade union National Garment Workers Federation (NGWF), which identified safety deficiencies such as a lack of inspections, but also other labor rights violations such as a lack of freedom of association.

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#OhMyG*OSH! First issue of the G*OSH newsletter on gender-equitable occupational health and safety.

Gender equity and occupational health and safety need to be thought together, especially for textile and footwear factories where women are predominantly employed. We started implementing this with a multi-actor partnership (MAP) on gender-responsive occupational health and safety launched in December 2021. A lot has happened since then!

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© FEMNET

A voice for workers

This article was originally published 10th November 2022 on the site of the Bundeskanzler-Helmut-Schmidt-Stiftung.

Around 60 to 75 million people work in the textile and garment industry worldwide. The majority of them are women who work and live in strongly patriarchal societies such as Bangladesh or India. Supported by trade unions, only few of them dare to speak up against labour rights violations. As spaces for organised labour continue to shrink, freedom of expression is more and more trampled down.

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Call for tenders for a study on minimum wages in Sindh Province in Pakistan in January and February 2023

Research on labor rights violations for potential complaints under the German Act on Corporate Due Diligence Obligations in Supply Chains (LKSG)

The German Act on Corporate Due Diligence Obligations in Supply Chains (LKSG) has come into force in January 2023. It obliges companies with more than 3000 employees to exercise human rights due diligence with regards to their supply chain. In particular, the right to an adequate wage and freedom of association are protected under the law (§ 2 II No. 6, 8, 11). In this context, the German NGOs FEMNET (member of the Clean Clothes campaign) and ECCHR (the European Center for Constitutional and Human Rights) are working on a project to see how the law can help to address labor rights violations in garment factories.

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