Press Release
03/14/2019
For Immediate Release: March 14, 2019
Contact
Nicole Vander Meulen, ICAR
+1 616 822 9073
Christie Miedema, CCC
+ 31-20-4122785
Labor and Human Rights Groups Urge Multi-Stakeholder Initiatives and Business Associations in the Apparel Sector to Adopt Transparency Requirements
Fair Labor Association Makes Significant Move to Require Affiliates to Disclose Supplier Lists
(Washington, D.C., March 14, 2019) – In response to requests from trade unions, and other independent labor rights and human rights organizations, on February 27 the Fair Labor Association (FLA) voted to require its company affiliates to publicly disclose their supplier lists. Details concerning the implementation of this decision, including the scope of disclosure, remain to be seen. However, if the FLA follows this decision with robust enforcement of this requirement for its member companies, it will be a significant development towards greater transparency and corporate accountability for garment workers’ rights in global supply chains. Members of the Transparency Pledge Coalition, a group of global unions and other independent labor rights and human rights organizations, will be monitoring this decision to ensure its full and meaningful implementation while calling on other apparel sector Multi-Stakeholder Initiatives (MSIs) and business associations to follow suit.
During the early 2000s, at the request of student activists, U.S. universities began requiring apparel brands that manufactured their licensed apparel to disclose the names and locations of their supplier factories, a practice that, due to ongoing engagement by labor rights and human rights advocates has since been adopted by dozens of other brands. The disclosure of this information is a foundational element of human rights due diligence. It is also a necessary first step towards accountability when labor and human rights violations occur. Supply chain transparency allows workers, their unions, and other labor rights advocates to ascertain for which apparel brand workers are producing garments, giving them the opportunity to raise labor rights grievances and violations of brands’ own codes of conduct directly to brands.
The nine organizations that are members of the Transparency Pledge Coalition – Clean Clothes Campaign, Human Rights Watch, IndustriALL, International Corporate Accountability Roundtable, International Labor Rights Forum, International Trade Union Confederation, Maquila Solidarity Network, UNI Global Union, and Worker Rights Consortium – believe that transparency builds stakeholder trust by signaling company commitment to accountability. Since its inception in 2016, the Coalition has successfully convinced numerous apparel brands to adopt its minimum standard on transparency and persuaded many others to take meaningful steps in the right direction. This decision by the FLA follows the Transparency Pledge Coalition’s request that the FLA require supply chain disclosure as a condition of membership.
“While disclosure of factory lists will not automatically lead to improved working conditions on the ground, it is a critical first step towards that goal. In addition to enhancing companies’ due diligence, it strengthens accountability by enabling workers and their advocates to bring human rights abuses to the attention of the brands for which they are producing. Other MSIs should take note of the FLA’s decision and follow suit. Transparency is becoming a cornerstone of responsible business conduct against which all companies should be measured,” said Nicole Vander Meulen, the International Corporate Accountability Roundtable’s Legal and Policy Coordinator.
“Transparency needs to be a cornerstone of any serious effort by brands to build a supply chain free from serious rights abuses,” said Aruna Kashyap, senior women’s rights counsel at Human Rights Watch. “The FLA’s decision is a significant step forward, and others need to follow.”
The Coalition will continue to engage with the FLA’s Factory List Transparency Working Group to ensure that there is robust implementation. Companies should no longer be allowed to hide behind opaque supply chains.
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Notes to Editors
The Fair Labor Association
The FLA is a multi-stakeholder initiative that describes itself as a “collaborative effort of universities, civil society organizations and socially responsible companies dedicated to protecting workers’ rights around the world.” The Fair Labor Association voted to create the Factory List Transparency Working Group in June, 2017 and tasked the Working Group with exploring the topic of factory list disclosure and ultimately providing a recommendation to the FLA Board on factory list disclosure.
For additional information on the FLA see their website: Fair Labor Association website
The Transparency Pledge Coalition
Recognizing the importance of transparency, in 2016 a group of nine labor and human rights organizations formed a coalition to advocate for transparency in apparel supply chains. This Coalition consists of ICAR, Human Rights Watch, Clean Clothes Campaign, Maquila Solidarity Network, Worker Rights Consortium, the International Labor Rights Forum, IndustriALL Global Union, International Trade Union Confederation, and UNI Global Union.
Together, they developed the Apparel and Footwear Supply Chain Transparency Pledge (the Transparency Pledge), which lays out the common minimum standard companies are expected to meet for supply chain disclosure in the apparel sector. The Transparency Pledge Coalition has played a key role in driving greater disclosure by apparel brands, and as of last year set its sights on scaling up that work by engaging with relevant MSIs.
For more information on the Transparency Pledge Coalition, see our website: Transparency Pledge Website
The Transparency Pledge Coalition published its inaugural report, Follow the Thread: the Need for Supply Chain Transparency in the Garment and Footwear Industry, in 2017. The report lays out the case for supply chain transparency, explains what the Transparency Pledge is and why it is needed, and details outreach to brands and their responses.
The report can be found here: Follow the Thread: the Need for Supply Chain Transparency in the Garment and Footwear Industry
In 2018 the Transparency Pledge Coalition reached out to 7 MSIs / business associations requesting that they, among other things, require disclosure of factory information in line with the Pledge standard as a condition of membership. These MSIs / business associations were the FLA, the Fair Wear Foundation, the Dutch Covenant, the German Textile Partnership, the Ethical Trading Initiative, the Sustainable Apparel Coalition, and amfori. Until now none have made the official decision to require their members to disclose factory lists.