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31 August 2021 More than 50 organisations call on brands, governments and employers in Bangladesh and Sri Lanka to ensure the safety of textile workers

The lives of textile workers are at risk. While the Delta virus variant is spreading in Sri Lanka and Bangladesh, the garment factories are working at full capacity. Textile workers are exempted from lockdown to meet orders from brand manufacturers headquartered in countries with high vaccination rates.

In a letter initiated by the Clean Clothes Campaign, trade unions and civil society organisations from around the world address political and business leaders and call on them to take immediate action.

Open Letter to Governments and Employers' Associations of Sri Lanka and Bangladesh and all clothing brands sourced from Bangladesh and/or Sri Lanka

The current Covid 19 wave and the spread of the Delta variant in South Asia are leading to an increase in serious illnesses and deaths in Sri Lanka and Bangladesh. In August, Bangladesh recorded a 20% positive rate and the highest number of deaths in a day to date. Meanwhile, infection and death rates doubled in Sri Lanka.

As both countries are major exporters of textiles, garment workers who have little access to medical infrastructure or vaccines are particularly affected. They receive little support in case of illness. For economic reasons, the governments of both countries have exempted garment workers from lockdowns by classifying them as indispensable workers. That's why they have to report to work in crowded factories where the virus can spread easily.

Despite constant calls from trade unions and international workers' representatives since the beginning of the pandemic, neither national governments, nor local factory managers, nor international clothing brands shopping in Bangladesh and Sri Lanka have done anything to provide workers with adequate occupational health and safety or social programs that would allow them to stay at home.

Failure to prioritise workers' health and safety forces workers to enter either a factory without access to necessary protective equipment and without sufficient social distancing. In addition, there are minimal testing and vaccination capacities. Or they face financial ruin – with no income or social benefits. It is untenable that workers in Sri Lanka and Bangladesh have to choose between death and poverty.

As trade unions representing workers in Sri Lanka and Bangladesh, and as international workers' representatives, we call on factory managers, national governments and international clothing brands to:

• Including the clothing industry in lockdowns to protect people from Covid-19 and to stop the production of clothing under the pretext of maintaining important services;
• Extension of the Vaccinations and tests for garment workers, in their places of work
• Implement ILO occupational safety and health standards and the guidelines of the Consortium on Workers' Rights for effective infection control in garment factories; with particular attention to personal protective equipment (PPE), spatial distancing, the right to remove hazards and mechanisms for the involvement of workers, and the adaptation of transport systems where necessary;
• Ensure that workers who are forced to stay away from work due to the new Covid-19 restrictions continue to receive their full wages, in line with the demands of the Pay Your Workers campaign;
• Allow Workers to Voluntarily Reject Unsafe Work, and do not exclude those who give up their work due to Covid-19 risks from severance payments or other financial benefits during the crisis, and do not punish them with the loss of contracts or work if the crisis subsides.

This means the following:

• The national governments must expand tests and vaccinations of textile workers, enable quarantine measures, increase requirements for social distancing in factories, and thus reduce the percentage of workers admitted to each factory and order that all workers receive full pay during the closures. In addition, governments should include the garment sector in national lockdown measures and apply the lockdown rules equally to protect garment workers during the pandemic.
• The Clothing brands extend the lead times for orders during the lockdown to allow for the reduction of workers or the temporary closure of factories necessary to protect workers. Brands need to monitor their suppliers' factories to work with them to ensure that the workers who make their clothes can do so safely, and that those workers who cannot get to work due to security measures are still paid in full. While this letter focuses on Bangladesh and Sri Lanka in light of the current crisis, garment brands must exercise due diligence in all countries and monitor workers' safety and pay during the pandemic in all countries from which they source their goods to ensure that workers do not have to risk their lives to fulfill the brands' orders.
• The Factory owner must comply with all new health regulations and ensure that workers have access to personal protective equipment and can work at a safe distance. All workers must receive their full wages during the lockdown.

These are necessary measures to be taken by international brands, national governments and local factory managers to protect the lives and livelihoods of the workers from whose work they benefit.

As this is an urgent matter, we ask you to take immediate action to ensure that the above steps are implemented without further delay.

Yours sincerely,

International civil society

Association of Conscious Consumers/Tudatos Vásárlók Egyesülete, Hungary

Campagna Abiti Puliti, Italy

cum ratione, Germany

CCK / Clean Clothes Campaign Austria

Clean Clothes Campaign International Office

Collective for Social Interventions, Bulgaria

Comhlamh, Ireland

Coordinamento nord sud del mondo, Italy

Corporate Accountability Lab

Fair, Italy

Fair action, Sweden

FEMNET e.V.

Gender Alliance for Development Center, Albania

Trade Union PRO-GE, Austria

GLOBAL 2000, Friends of the Earth Austria

Global action, Denmark

Latin America Information Group – IGLA, Germany

Campaign for Clean Clothes, Germany

Labour behind the Label, UK

Labour Education Foundation, Pakistan

Maquila Solidarity Network

NaZemi, Czech Republic

No Sweat, UK

Open Gate - La Strada Macedonia

PayUpFashion Coalition, US

Project Cece, Netherlands

Remake, US

Schone Kleren Campagne, Netherlands

Sertac Sunman Export, Turkey

SOMO, Netherlands

Stitched Up Community Benefit Society, UK

Südwind, Austria

Traidcraft Exchange

UNI Global Union

United Steelworkers, Canada

WageIndicator Foundation

War on Want, UK

WORKERS ASSISTANCE CENTER, INC., Philippines

Worker Rights Consortium

Workers United – SEIU, US

Yaung Chi Oo Workers Association, Myanmar