Just in time for the new school year, Free the Children has launched an updated We Day website, showcasing their lesson plans for elementary and secondary school educators and learners.
Topics include the Millennium Development Goals, children’s rights, clean water, hunger, education and community mapping, among others.
This is what it’s all about—empowering educators to empower learners. Although the lessons and activities are not published through the Creative Commons, they are downloadable for free in PDF.
Here are some videos on child labour and globalization, presented by Dr. Jonathan White, Professor of Sociology and Political Economy at Bridgewater State University:
Will your students be participating in We Day this year? If not, these lessons will surely inspire them to want to get involved.
IMG has moved to cancel the September 15th runway show of Gulnara Karimova. What’s the big deal? Only that Karimova is the daughter of Islam Karimov…the President of Uzbekistan.
“Gulnara Karimova is a senior government official and daughter of strongman Islam Karimov whose regime is widely criticized for its brutal violations of human rights and for sponsoring forced child labor in the country’s cotton fields.” (International Labor Rights Forum, Press Release)
We’d like to thank the International Labor Rights Forum and others for taking swift action. In the very least, it may have drawn some much needed attention to the situation in Uzbekistan.
You can take action by rallying along side activists on September 15th from 11am to 1pm ET at Lincoln Center for a mock fashion show, illustrating the true face of Uzbek fashion. Join there Facebook page, here.
If you’re in New York, check out (sustainable) Fashion’s Night Out, hosted by EcoSalon, Of Rags, NYC Fair Trade Coalition and Textile Arts Center.
Not just for an evening of shopping and celebrating, but also education! FREE education!
“(sustainable) Fashion’s Night Out is a collaboration that celebrates sustainability’s place in the fashion world and in the global economy. The term sustainable is in parenthesis for the event title because this word itself is not the focal point of the event, rather, the evening aims to show that anything fashionable should simply make a positive impact and not need a qualifier to differentiate it.” (Ecosalon)
Click here for the details, and enjoy the festivities!
As you know, we’re huge fans of Otto von Busch for his innovative work and research in ir/responsible fashion and hackivism.
In a recent project, Otto hacks fashion theory through a series of small booklets. We’ve just added them to our required reading list and so should you!
“Fashion is the celebration of the immediate future. By being constantly new, fashion indicates that the future can be something else, and it pulls us there, by force almost, promising the endless possibilities of the new, the unwritten, our possible better self.” (The Virus of Fashion, Axel Trumpfheller and Otto von Busch: Pg. 27)
Thanks to TED for sharing this project with us (stay tuned for the launch of their new site), and congratulations to Otto on his new post as Associate Professor of Integrated Design at Parsons New School of Design in New York!
It’s no secret that the CSR industry cycles through trends of the ‘it’ topic. For a while the hottest topic was workers at Latin American maquiladores, then it was human rights in the sports lifestyle industry, then we moved on to organic cotton, and water ‘stewardship’ and the cycles continue. Lately, I’ve noticed something interesting. A new hot topic is on the horizon and will probably emerge full force into ‘mainstream’ CSR conversations within the next few years: living wages!
Some of you may be thinking that you’ve heard of this issue before…nothing new! That’s true, it is not a new concept. Actually, the idea of a living wage [or fair wage, I’m going to use the two terms interchangeably until someone can tell me their exact definitions and how they differ] has been around for a long time. Katrine discussed the Asia Floor Wage Campaign on this very website in 2009. But, long before the Asia Floor Wage Campaign started it’s activities, fair trade products were being sold with the goal of providing a fair wage to producers. So what’s the big deal? Why am I talking about this as though it’s a hot new trend?
Well, there’s been another interesting set of events this year that at first may seem unrelated.
The release of the UN’s long-awaited Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights: Implementing the United Nations “Protect, Respect and Remedy” Framework
The release of the OECD’s newly revised Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises: Recommendations for Responsible Business Conduct in a Global Context
The release of the FLA’s updated Workplace Code of Conduct
Reading all these statements and the background papers, the conference proceedings and so on that lead to the final product can be a bit tedious. Luckily, I have to do this for my dissertation anyway so, I’ll just summarize the relevant points and briefly explain the significance of these events.
The UN: Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights: Implementing the United Nations “Protect, Respect and Remedy” Framework
When Professor John Ruggie was appointed the Special Representative of the Secretary-General on business and human rights back in 2005, he had a 2-year research based mandate “to ‘identify and clarify’ existing standards and practices.” In 2007, the UN Human Rights Council extended Ruggie’s mandate for 1 year with a request for recommendations based on his research. This mandate concluded with the publication of the Protect, Respect and Remedy Framework in 2008 which was “welcomed” during the 8th session of the UN Human Rights Council. Once again, Ruggie’s mandate was extended for another 3 years during which the UN Human Rights Council requested that the Protect, Respect and Remedy Framework be operationalized. The outcome of this long history is the publication of the Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights: Implementing the United Nations “Protect, Respect and Remedy” Frameworkwhich were “recognized” by the 17th session of the UN Human Rights Council.
So what’s so important about these guidelines, and this history in general? They clarify the duties of businesses and states when it comes to human rights. What I think is especially important is the fact that the UN has basically placed corporate activity right in the middle of human rights discourse stipulating very clearly that not only does business have a responsibility to respect human rights, it also has a role in creating and supporting the mechanisms to remedy any rights violations associated with business activities. Essentially, the UN [which some have argued is the purveyor of global norms] has validated and legitimized the idea that business has a role in the governance of human rights. As a side note, one of the features of The Gap Inc., 2010 CSR report is the launch of their Human Rights policy [one of the first companies I know of with one of those] which directly references and uses similar terminology as the Protect, Respect and Remedy Framework.
But I still haven’t shared the best part. If you read this document carefully, you will notice section 12:
You would think that I would be really excited about the ILO reference in this, but that’s not interesting at all since the commentary section clarifies that what they mean by the ILO’s declaration is actually just the 8 core rights which almost any business serious about CSR already acscribes to anyway. No, the interesting part is this simple mathematical equation:
International Bill of Human Rights
=
United Nations Declaration of Human Rights
+
International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights
+
International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights
If you go deeper and look at the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights you will find a small statement, Article 7.a.ii, that is very relevant:
The OECD: Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises: Recommendations for Responsible Business Conduct in a Global Context
As you may have noticed, these declarations and reports and guidelines feed off each other. When Ruggie’s Protect, Respect and Remedy Framework was first released, the OECD took notice. In 2009, the idea was floated that maybe it was time to update their own guidelines for businesses which had not been reviewed since 2000! Kudos to them for noticing that a lot has changed since 2000. So it’s 2010, and after a whole lot of negotiations and discussions, the 48 member countries come up with a document called the Terms of Reference for an Update of the OECD Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises which basically set out the parameters for changes to the guidelines. On page 4 of this document is this line:
The OECD then had conferences and meetings, some with John Ruggie, to discuss the future form of their guidelines. Finally, this year, the updated guidelines were launched in May. In those 84 pages, Chapter V, section 4.b stipulates:
If you look at the 2010 set of guidelines, there is no mention of adequate pay to “satisfy the basic needs of the workers and their families” so this was definitely an addition to this year’s guidelines. But, the commentary section doesn’t mention it at all! I don’t think this was an oversight. Maybe this was a way to test this proposition and gauge reactions. In any case, once again, a reference to some sort of an improvement in wages to meet basic needs is out there in an official document. The idea is becoming more embedded in the global normative outlook even if it still hasn’t been defined or had its parameters clarified.
The FLA: Workplace Code of Conduct
In June this year, after a 2 year process of consultations with their stakeholders, the FLA revised their Workplace Code of Conduct. And they made it really easy to spot the differences between the 1997 code and the revised 2011 code with a side-by-side comparison. This picture shows an interesting change [1997 on the left, 2011 on the right]:
Again, “basic needs” is used to describe the same thing the OECD was talking about; some sort of improvement in wages so that workers can afford their basic needs plus a little extra. To go a little further, the FLA stipulates that if the minimum wage does not cover basic needs plus a little extra, FLA members have to work with the FLA to reach such a level of compensation!! And so here it is, a direct call on businesses to work to improve wage conditions so that workers can afford their basic needs and have a little extra leftover!
Even though many organizations have been working on promoting the idea of a living wage including the Asia Floor Wage Campaign and the Ethical Trading Initiative, this is the first time that we are seeing these ideas seep into policy related documents at the global level. And this conversation about living wages isn’t contextually relegated to ‘developing’ countries. Check out this article from This Magazine about the living wage debate in Canada. Things start to get really complicated when there are discussions about the nitty-gritty details. Whose responsibility is it to implement these types of policies? What will the wider impact on the rest of society be? How will these policies be implemented within supply chains? and the questions just keep coming. The video below is from the ETI Conference in 2008 where these questions were actually discussed (start at 1:34). At the end of the day, this is just the beginning of the mainstreaming of the conversation but it is still a start!
You’ve likely followed the mass faintings of garment workers that have taken place in Cambodia this year. While most reports have cited gruelling working conditions and worker exposure to toxic chemicals as likely causes, reasons for the faintings remain unclear.
Add to this a recent report out of Yale Law School’s Allard K. Lowenstein International Human Rights Clinic, “Tearing Apart at the Seams: How Widespread Use of Fixed-Duration Contracts Threatens Cambodian Workers and the Cambodian Garment Industry.”
The report highlights an amendment to relax restrictions on fixed-duration contracts would compromise the rights of garment workers under both Cambodian and international law. As a result, the authors advise the government not to amend the current labour law.
“The Cambodian government has been considering amending the labor law to ease restrictions on fixed-duration contracts. The country’s apparel industry is already facing heightened international scrutiny because of the mass firings of workers who participated in a strike last year over low wages. One of the main competitive advantages of the Cambodian garment industry is its reputation for progress on protecting workers’ rights, so it is important to understand the human rights consequences of using FDCs and the impact that permitting their expansion could have on Cambodia’s competitiveness.” (James Silk, director of the Lowenstein International Human Rights Clinic)
The study calls for the ILO-BFC program, along with other relevant parties, to work with stakeholders to support long-term contracts. In return, the program has stated it will investigate “how the general trend in using short term contracts can be converted in the industry wide understanding of the long term benefits of changing over to longer term employment relationships” (Media Update 17 August 2011, “Yale Law School releases a report on Fixed Duration Contracts”: ILO-BFC).
While we wait to learn how all of this will continue to play out, we thought we’d leave you on a positive note, and (re)draw your attention to an important health and safety education initiative we posted on our Facebook page a couple of weeks ago: The ILO-BFC’s Garment Workers Open University 2011.
“Each Sunday, nearly 500 workers, from 20 garment factories, attended a full-day training to learn some basic knowledge about the Cambodian Labour Law, and obtain information about social protection services available to them.” (ILO-BFC)
Join Jen Ballie, PhD Candidate with Chelsea College of Art and Design at the University of the Arts London, in London on August 26th and 27th for a workshop on co-design at V&A.
DRESS UP/DOWNload Workshop
Sackler Centre Reception Friday 18.30–19.30 & 20.00–21.30 Saturday 13.00–16.30
The Centre for Sustainable Fashion has partnered with i-D to deliver a 12 part series designed to transform the way we buy, wear and consider fashion.
In i-Sustain: Issue III—the third instalment— Alex McIntosh investigates marketing, consumption and notions of a collective conscious while featuring designer Ruth Ferguson’s responsible swimwear collection: Olga Olsson
“We’re not foolish enough to think that in a few hundred words it’s possible to shed light on the ethical black hole from which the ‘democratically’ priced fashion we crave emerges but one thing is for sure, as long as we keep demanding it faster and cheaper that hole is going to get deeper.” (Alex McIntosh)
We’re already looking forward to the next issue. Be sure to follow this exciting project.
Oxfam Australia has launched a new online campaign: Sneaky Business—a virtual march touring protesters across factories in Southeast Asia, China and Central America, all the way to the headquarters of leading shoe manufacturer, Nike. The march is a call for action for workers rights in the global footwear industry. As I write this post, there are 205 virtual protesters marching through Indonesia.
“The journey shows that poor working conditions are a global problem. Worker exploitation exists whether in Australia, South East Asia or Central America. However Sneaky Business also demonstrates that there are companies doing the right thing— ensuring that footwear workers are treated with dignity and have access to their rights.” (Oxfam Australia)
When the march finishes up in the next few months, Oxfam will deliver the messages of each protester to the shoe manufacturers. Teachers, this sounds like a perfect project to get your class involved with come September.
To join the march, simply choose your message and upload a picture of your sneakers!
Have you been following Yoxi’s Trim the Waste of Fashion competition? Well, it’s time to get your vote in with Round 1: Perspective. There are 9 teams competing in this round, with only 6 advancing.
FOREVERMORE, by Amy DuFault, Managing Editor at Ecosalon, and Eliza Starbuck, of the Uniform Project, is one of the great projects being pitched. Head on over to the Yoxi site to check out the other competitors and to vote for your favourite entry!
Just in time for the new school year, Free the Children has launched an updated We Day website, showcasing their lesson plans for elementary and secondary school educators and learners.
