Gender Based Violence in the H&M Garment Supply Chain WORKERS VOICES FROM THE GLOBAL SUPPLY CHAIN : A Report to the ILO 2018 Asia Floor Wage Alliance (AFWA) was oicially formed in 2006 and includes more than 76 organizaions, including garment industry trade unions, NGOs, consumer groups and research insitutes from more than 17 countries from across Asia, Europe and North America. The Center for Alliance of Labor & Human Rights (CENTRAL) is a local Cambodian NGO. The organizaion empowers Cambodian working people to demand transparent and accountable governance for labor and human rights through legal aid and other appropriate means. Global Labor Jusice (GLJ) is a strategy hub supporing transnaional collaboraion among worker and migrant organizaions to expand labor rights and new forms of bargaining on global value chains and internaional labor migraion corridors. Sedane Labour Resource Centre/Lembaga Informasi Perburuhan Sedane (LIPS) is a nongovernmental organizaion in labor studies. LIPS works to strengthen the labor movement by documening knowledge through paricipatory research and developing methods of popular educaion in labor groups and unions. SLD is a Delhi-based labour rights organisaion. SLD promotes equitable development by advocaing for the social and economic wellbeing of workers, with a paricular emphasis on women’s and migrants’ rights and cultural renewal among disenfranchised people. SLD works in the Naional Capital Region Territory, Haryana, Utar Pradesh, Bihar, and Jharkhand. Copyright 2018 Natalie Leifer for Asia Floor Wage 4 CONTENTS CONTENTS EXECUTIVE SUMMARY In India, women workers employed in an H&M supplier factory in Bangalore, India reported physical abuse associated with pressure to meet producion targets. Radhika described being thrown to the loor and beaten, including on her breasts: On September 27, 2017, at 12:30 pm, my batch supervisor came up behind me as I was working on the sewing machine, yelling “you are not meeing your target producion.” He pulled me out of the chair and I fell on the loor. He hit me, including on my breasts. He pulled me up and then pushed me to the loor again. He kicked me. Radhika iled a writen complaint with the human resources department at the factory. She described the meeing between herself, the supervisor, and human resources personnel: They called the supervisor to the oice and said, “last month you did the same thing to another lady—haven’t you learned?” Then they told him to apologize to me. Ater that, they warned me not to menion this further. The supervisor and I let the meeing. I went back to work. Radhika reported that the harassment from her manager did not stop, but that she coninued to work at the factory because she needs the job: “My husband passed away and I have a physically challenged daughter who cannot work. That is why I need the job. I sufer a lot to earn my livelihood.” Radhika’s experience of workplace violence provides insight into the risk factors that leave women workers in H&M garment supply chains exposed to violence. In the H&M supplier factory where Radhika worked, women are concentrated in operator roles, as line tailors and helpers in the producion department. The gendered concentraion of women workers as machine operators, checkers, and helpers in this H&M supplier factory is a microcosm of gendered hiring pracices in garment global producion networks. Across Asia, women garment workers make up the vast majority of garment workers. In Bangladesh, Cambodia, Indonesia, and Sri Lanka, women workers represent between 80 and 95% of the garment workforce. In India, women account for at between 60-75% of the garment workforce. Women rarely, however, hold management and supervisory posiions. This report—including interviews with more than 331 workers employed in 32 factories that supply to H&M—documents the experiences of women garment workers at the base of H&M garment supply chains. Concentrated in short term, lowskill, and low-wage posiions, they are at daily risk of gender based violence and harassment at work. Systemaically documening risk factors for violence, this report presents new, in-depth proiles of gendered hiring pracices in 6 H&M supplier factories in Bangladesh, Cambodia, and India completed between February and May 2018. It also draws upon Asia Floor Wage Alliance (2016) documentaion of rights violaions at work in H&M garment global supply chains in Cambodia and India. With 171,000 employees worldwide, H&M currently operates 4,293 stores in more than 35 countries, and is present in 69 store markets and 43 online markets. In 2018 the H&M group plans to open approximately 390 new stores and approximately 170 store closures are planned, resuling in a net addiion of approximately 220 stores with new H&M store markets are Uruguay and Ukraine. Global brands like H&M wield an immense potenial to transform working condiions through their supply chains. -------------As set out in Chapter 1 of this report, from May 28 to June 6, 2018, the Internaional Labour Organizaion (ILO) is convening a Standard Seing Commitee tasked with ending violence and harassment in the world of work. The proposed ILO standard is a imely opportunity to reach an expanded deiniion of gender based violence and establish a framework within which governments, employers, companies, and unions can take acion to tackle the problem. In October 2016, an ILO Commitee of Experts released a report framing the upcoming deliberaions. The Commitee noted that while violence can potenially afect everyone, speciic groups, including women workers, are disproporionately impacted. Accordingly, the Commitee called for speciic acion to address the gender dimensions of violence and an internaional standard that can respond to new challenges and risks of violence and harassment that arise from changing forms of work and technology (GB.328/INS/17/5, para. 6 Appendix I, para. 2, 11, 18). The October 2016 Commitee of Experts report also presents a detailed set of risk factors for violence and harassment, including risk factors associated with the nature and seing of work as well as the structure of the labour market (GB.328/INS/17/5, Appendix III). The DirectorGeneral of the ILO emphasized the need for beter data on violence and harassment in the world of work (GB.328/INS/17/5, para. 4). As outlined in Chapter 3, H&M Corporate Social Responsibility iniiaives fall short of decent work standards, are enirely self-monitored, and fail to address risk factors for violence or provide avenues for relief in cases of workplace violence. Spectrum of gender based violence According to the Commitee of Experts convened by the ILO in October 2016, “violence and harassment” in the world of work includes a coninuum of unacceptable behaviors and pracices that are likely to result in physical, psychological or sexual harm or sufering. Under exising internaional legal standards, gender based violence includes: 1) violence which is directed against a woman because she is a woman; and 2) violence that afects women disproporionately. Forms of gender based violence include acts that inlict physical harm, mental harm, sexual harm or sufering, threats of the any of these acts, coercion, and deprivaions of liberty (CEDAW, General recommendaion 19, aricle 1). Women garment workers may be targets of violence on the basis of their gender, or because they are perceived as less likely or able to resist. Comprising the majority of workers in garment supply chains in Asia, women workers are also disproporionately impacted by forms of workplace violence perpetrated against both women and men. For women garment workers, violence, and harassment in the world of work includes not only violence that takes place in physical workplaces, but also during commutes and in employer provided housing. Violence and harassment may be a one-of occurrence or repeated (GB.328/INS/17/5, Appendix I, para. 7-8). 5 6 CONTENTS CONTENTS Table 1: Spectrum of gender based violence in H&M garment supply chains Gendered aspects of violence, including: 1. Violence against a woman because she is a woman 2. Violence directed against a woman that afects women disproporionately due to (a) high concentraion of women workers in risky producion departments; and (b) gendered barriers to seeking relief Forms of violence Acts that inlict physical harm • • • • • • Acts that inlict mental harm • • • • Acts that inlict sexual harm or sufering (including sexual harassment, abuse, assault, and rape) Coercion, threats, and retaliaion • • • • • • • Deprivaions of liberty • • • • Assault, including pushing to the loor, beaing and kicking, gendered aspects (1), 2(b) Slapping, gendered aspects 2(a) and (b) Pushing, gendered aspects 2(a) and (b) Throwing heavy bundles of papers and clothes, gendered aspects 2(a) and (b) Overwork with low wages, resuling in faining due to calorie deicit, high heat, and poor air circulaion, gendered aspect 2(a) Long hours performing repeiive manual tasks lead to chronic health issues, gendered aspect 2(a) General verbal abuse, including bullying and verbal public humiliaion, gendered aspect 2(a) Verbal abuse linked to gender and sexuality, gendered aspect (1) Verbal abuse linked to caste or social group, gendered aspect 2(a) and (b) Verbal abuse targeing senior women workers so that they voluntary resign prior to receiving beneits associated with seniority, gendered aspect 2(a) Sexual advances from management and mechanics and retaliaion for reporing, gendered aspect (1), 2(a) Sexual harassment from management and co-workers, gendered aspect (1) Unwanted physical touch, including inappropriate touching, pulling hair, and bodily contact by managers and male co-workers, gendered aspect (1) Rape outside the factory at accommodaion, gendered aspect (1) Threats of retaliaion for refusing sexual advances, gendered aspects 1, 2(a) and (b) Retaliaion for reporing gendered violence and harassment, gendered aspects 1, 2(a) and (b) Blacklising workers who report workplace violence, harassment, and other rights violaions, gendered aspect 2(a) Forced to work during legally mandated lunch hours, gendered aspect 2(a) Prevented from taking bathroom breaks, gendered aspect 2(a) Forced overime, gendered aspect 2(a) Prevented from using legally mandated leave enitlements, gendered aspect 2(a) Chapter 4 of this report provides detailed accounts of this spectrum of violence, including personal experiences of violence reported by women garment workers in H&M supply chains in Bangladesh, Cambodia, India, Indonesia, and Sri Lanka. Women described experiences of violence that inlict sexual harm and sufering; and forms of violence characterisic of industrial discipline pracices, including physical violence, verbal abuse, coercion, threats and retaliaion, and rouine deprivaions of liberty—including forced overime. Risk factors for gender based violence The experiences of gender based violence in H&M garment supplier factories documented in this report are not isolated incidents. Rather, they relect a convergence of risk factors for gender based violence in H&M supplier factories that leave women garment workers systemaically exposed to violence. Risk factors in H&M garment supply chains are a by-product of how H&M and other transnaional corporaions do business. Chapter 2 of this report provides a brief overview of global producion networks in general and the garment global producion network in paricular. It outlines asymmetrical relaionships of power between brands and suppliers in garment supply chains, brand purchasing pracices driven by fast fashion trends and pressure to reduce costs, and the corresponding proliferaion of contract labour and subcontracing pracices among supplier irms. These pracices have a profound impact on the lives of women garment workers in Asian garment value chains, including in Bangladesh, Cambodia, India, Indonesian, and Sri Lanka. Labour and employment pracices in garment producion factories have been described as operatory labour pracices (Table 2), referring to the role of workers as basic operators. Operatory labour pracices correspond with paricular workplace condiions and relaionships that expose women garment workers to risk factors for violence. Chapter 5 of this report documents risk factors for violence documented in the H&M garment supply chain, including use of short term contracts and unrealisic producion targets that drive wage related rights abuses, excessive working hours, and unsafe workplaces. The combination of calorie deficiency and relentless working hours is violent in the wages it withholds and the labour it extracts. Barriers to accountability—including unauthorized subcontracing, denial of freedom of associaion, failure to require independent monitoring, and gendered cultures of impunity among perpetrators of violence prevent women from seeking accountability and relief. 7 8 CONTENTS CONTENTS Table 2: Operatory labour pracices, workforce demographics, and working condiions in garment producion Authority Management • Hierarchical work relaions • Sweat shop disciplinary pracices, including verbal, physical, and sexual harassment and abuse Union presence • Ani-union management pracices Workforce demographics Educaion • Illiterate, low literacy and literate Women • High percentage of women migrant workers • Concentraion in low-skill departments and tasks • Home-workers hired on piece rate Employment condiions Wages and • Below or at minimum wage and piece rate payment incenives Overime • High levels of forced overime Employment • Low employment security security Source: Adapted from Nathan, Saripalle and Gurunathan 2016 ILO standards to address violence against men and women in the world of work How can standards on violence against men and women in the world of work address gender based violence in garment global producion networks in Asia? As detailed in this report, women workers concentrated in low-wage employment at the base of H&M garment supply chains are at daily risk of violence. The structure of producion in global producion networks (GPNs), involving several companies across muliple countries, allows brands and retailers to dictate sourcing and producion paterns while delecing accountability for how purchasing pracices drive severe violaions of rights at work. Following ILC deliberaions on global supply chains at the 105th Session (2016), the ILO Commitee on Decent Work in Global Supply Chains, submited a report with resoluion and conclusions for adopion by the Conference (ILC105-PR14-1-En). The Commitee noted the signiicance of the ILO in ensuring decent work in global supply chains: With its mandate, experience and experise in the world of work, its normaive approach to development and its triparite structure, the ILO is uniquely posiioned to address governance gaps in global supply chains so that they can fulill their potenial as ladders for development (para. 7). As the only global triparite insituion, the ILO has a unique role to play in not only advancing decent work in supply chains, but also ensuring that supply chain governance addresses risk factors for gender based violence, and provides accessible avenues for relief. The recommendaions that follow seek to inform emerging understanding of violence in the world of work, idenify speciic risk factors for violence in garment global producion networks, and ensure a duty among muli-naional corporaions (MNCs) and their suppliers to obey naional laws and respect internaional standards pertaining to realizaion of ILO fundamental principles and rights at work. harassment in the world of work should cover situaions, including “(a) in the workplace, including public and private spaces where they are a place of work; (b) in places where the worker is paid or takes a rest break or a meal; (c) when commuing to and from work; (d) during work-related trips or travel, training, events or social aciviies; and (e) through workrelated communicaions enabled by informaion and communicaion technologies.” 1.4. The proposed situaions should be expanded to include the following situaions: 1.4.1. employer-provided housing; 1.4.2. recruitment sites, including day-labor recruitment sites; 1.4.3. home-based work; and Recommendations to ILO 1. Adopt an expansive deiniion of “worker” and “workplace” to ensure that all workers, workplaces, and forms of work are included in standards addressing workplace violence and harassment. 1.1. As presented in the Proposed Conclusions of Report V(2) on ending violence and harassment in the work of work, the term “worker” should cover persons in the formal and informal economy, including “(i) persons in any employment or occupaion, irrespecive of their contractual status; (ii) persons in training, including interns and apprenices; (iii) laid-of and suspended workers; (iv) volunteers; and (v) jobseekers and job applicants.” 1.2. The proposed deiniion of worker should explicitly include all migrant workers, regardless of their legal status in the place of employment. 1.3. As presented in the Proposed Conclusions of Report V(2), standards on violence and 1.4.4. export processing zones linked to global supply chains, including those characterized by exempions from labour laws, taxes, and restricions on union aciviies and collecive bargaining. 1.5. As presented in the Proposed Conclusions of Report V(2), “vicims and perpetrators of violence and harassment in the work of work can be employers, workers and third paries, including clients, customers, service providers, users, paients, and the public.” 1.6. The proposed deiniion of “vicims and perpetrators” should be expanded to include the following roles: 1.6.1. Muli-naional corporaions and brands, suppliers, and labor contractors in producion, agricultural, food processing, and other relevant contexts. 1.6.2. Private employment agencies as deined under Aricle 1 of the ILO Private Employment Agencies Convenion, 1997 (No. 181), including any enterprise or person, independent of the public authoriies, which provides one or more 9 10 CONTENTS of the following labour market services: (a) services for matching ofers of and applicaions for employment; (b) services for employing workers with a view to making them available to a third party (“user enterprise”); (c) other services relaing to job seeking, such as the provision of informaion, that do not aim to match speciic employment ofers and applicaions. 2. Address risk factors for violence, including risk factors associated with the nature and seing of work and the structure of the labour market. 2.1. Address risk factors for violence rooted in the structure of the labour market. Consistent with the Report of the Commitee of Experts convened by the ILO in October 2016, recognize gender based violence as a social rather than an individual problem, requiring comprehensive responses that extend beyond speciic events, individual perpetrators, and vicims/survivors (No. 35, para. 9). 2.2. Idenify (1) garment and other global producion networks and (2) migraion corridors as sectors and sites in which workers, including women and migrant workers, are more exposed to violence and harassment. Take corresponding measures to ensure these workers are efecively protected. 2.3. Acknowledge paricular risk factors for violence in global producion networks and take the followings measures to control these risks: 2.3.1. Address cultures of impunity for violence in the workplace by prohibiing workplace retaliaion and safeguarding fundamental rights to freedom of associaion and collecive bargaining. 2.3.2. Extend labour protecions to workers employed in situaions that are not protected by labour law and other social protecion frameworks. CONTENTS 2.3.3. Prohibit unrealisic producion demands and piece-rate targets that accelerate producion rates, extend working hours, create high-stress working environments, and foster abuse. 2.3.4. Address concentraion of women and migrant workers in low-wage, coningent work, especially in the lower iers of the supply chain. 2.3.5. Increase numbers of women in supervisory and managerial posiions 2.3.6. Call for and implement living wage standards. 2.3.7. Protect the rights of home-based workers. 2.3.8. Require muli-naional corporaions, employers, contractors, and states to maintain efecive remedies and safe, fair and efecive dispute resoluion mechanisms in cases of violence and harassment, including: 2.3.8.1. complaint and invesigaion mechanisms at the workplace level; 2.3.8.2. dispute resoluion mechanisms external to the workplace; 2.3.8.3. access to courts or tribunals; 2.3.8.4. protecion against vicimizaion of complainants, witnesses and whistle-blowers; and 2.3.8.5. legal, social, and administraive support measures for complainants. 2.3.9. Provide workers with informaion and training on the ideniied hazards and risks of violence and harassment and the associated prevenion and protecion measures. 2.4. Recognize and address discriminaion against women that intersects with other axes of discriminaion, including low economic resources, migrant status, race, ethnicity, caste, tribe, religion, and disability. 3. Draw upon and strengthen deiniions and prohibiions addressing violence against women by the Commitee on the Eliminaion of Discriminaion against Women (CEDAW) by applying these standards to gender based violence in the world of work. 3.1. The Internaional Labour Conference should adopt standards on violence and harassment in the world of work. These standards should take the form of a Convenion supplemented by a Recommendaion. 3.2. Consistent with General Recommendaion No. 19 on violence against women, adopted by the Commitee on the Eliminaion of Discriminaion against Women (CEDAW), ILO standards should include and address (1) “violence which is directed against a woman because she is a woman”; and (2) violence that “afects women disproporionately” (aricle 1). For instance, as documented in this study, women workers at the base of garment global producion networks are disproporionately impacted by gendered paterns of employment that concentrate women in low-wage, coningent employment. 3.3. Consistent with General Recommendaion No. 19, the deiniion of violence should include acts that inlict physical harm, mental harm, sexual harm or sufering, threats of any of these acts, coercion, and deprivaions of liberty (aricle 6). 4. Ensure a duty among MNCs and their suppliers to obey naional laws and respect internaional standards pertaining to realizaion of ILO fundamental principles and rights at work. 4.1. Noing the limits to jurisdicion under naional legal regimes, the ILO should move towards a binding legal convenion regulaing global supply chains. 4.1.1. Standards under this convenion must be at least as efecive and comprehensive as the UN Guiding Principle on Business and Human Rights and exising OECD mechanisms, including the 2011 OECD Guidelines for Mulinaional Enterprises. 4.1.2. The Convenion should include the following components, among others: 4.1.2.1. Impose liability, sustainable contracing, capitalizaion and/or other requirements on lead irms. 4.1.2.2. Establish regional and supply chain speciic inspecion mechanisms with monitoring and enforcement powers, including individual complaint mechanisms and ield invesigaion authority. 4.1.2.3. Require transparent and traceable product and producion informaion. 4.1.2.4. Address the special vulnerability of women and migrant workers on GVCs. 4.1.2.5. Limit the use of temporary, outsourced, self-employed, or other forms of contract labor that sidestep employer liability for worker protecion. 11 12 CONTENTS 5. Pursue a Recommendaion on human rights due diligence that takes into account and builds upon exising due diligence provisions that are evolving under the United Naions Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights and the 2011 OECD Guidelines for Mulinaional Enterprises. 5.1. Take the following complementary measures to protect workers employed in global value chains: CONTENTS 6.1.1. Since women represent the greatest majority of garment workers, the situaion of women should be urgently included in monitoring programmes to assess the spectrum of their clinical, social, and personal risks. 6.1.2. Research should include physical harm, mental harm, sexual harm or sufering, threats of any of these acts, coercion, and deprivaions of liberty. 5.1.2. Promote sector-based and transnaional collecive bargaining and urge countries to remove naional legal barriers to these forms of collecive acion. 6.1.3. Research should document (1) violence which is directed against a woman because she is a woman; and (2) violence that afects women disproporionately due to gendered paterns of employment that concentrate women in low-wage, coningent employment. 5.1.3. Expand work towards the eliminaion of forced labour, including promoing raiicaion and implementaion of the Forced Labour Convenion, 1930 (No. 29), Protocol to the Forced Labour Convenion 1930 and accompanying Recommendaion, 2014. 6.1.4. Research should consider not only the workplace, but also related situaions including training, recruitment and placement, commutes to and from work, and housing contexts where employers exhibit signiicant control over the daily lives of workers. 5.1.4. Coninue programs to ensure social protecion, fair wages, and health and safety at every level of GVCs. 6.1.5. Require an urgent, epidemiological study into deaths and disabiliies resuling from condiions of work and life of garment workers. This informaion should be made available publicly and to internaional agencies. 5.1.1. Recognize the right to living wage as a human right and establish living wage criteria and mechanisms. 6. Consistent with the Roadmap of the ILO programme of acion 2017-21 arising out of the work of the 105th Session (2016) of the ILO on decent work in global supply chains, knowledge generaion and disseminaion of research to inform ILO global supply chain programming should include gender based violence and risk factors for gender based violence. 6.1. Research the spectrum of gender based violence impacing women workers in garment and other supply chains: 6.1.6. Research design and planning should be sensiive to the barriers women face in discussing and reporing violence, including workplace retaliaion, social sigma, and trauma associated with recouning situaions of violence. Due to these factors, quanitaive approaches to documening gender based violence risk underreporing and may not produce insight into the range of violence women face, associated risk factors, and barriers to reporing. 6.2. Research adverse impacts of purchasing pracices upon: 6.2.1. Core labour standards for all categories of workers across value chains. 6.2.2. Wages and beneits for all categories of value chain workers. This research should aim to saisfy basic needs of workers and their families. 6.2.3. Access to fundamental rights to food, housing, and educaion for all categories of value chain workers and their families. 6.3. Research the range of global actors that may have leverage over GVCs including investors, hedge funds, pension funds and GVC networks that deine industry standards such as Free on Board (FOB) prices. 6.3.1. This line of research should include invesigaion of the mechanisms deployed by authoritaive actors within GVCs that contribute to violaions of fundamental principles and rights at work, including but not limited to atacks on freedom of associaion, collecive bargaining, forced overime, wage thet and forced labour. 6.4. Research into the types of technical advice needed by OECD government paricipants taking a muli-stakeholder approach to address risks of adverse impacts associated with products. 7. Organize a Triparite Conference on the adverse impact of contracing and purchasing pracices upon migrant workers’ rights. This conference should focus on: Copyright 2018 Natalie Leifer for Asia Floor Wage 7.1. The intersecion of migrant rights and ILO iniiaives to address violence against men and women in the world of work and Decent Work in Global Supply Chains. 7.2. Protecion of migrant rights as conferred under the UN Internaional Convenion on the Protecion of the Rights of all Migrant Workers and Members of their Families. 13 14 CONTENTS CONTENTS CONTENTS EXECUTIVE SUMMARY ...................................................................................................... SPECTRUM OF GENDER BASED VIOLENCE ................................................................................... RISK FACTORS FOR GENDER BASED VIOLENCE .............................................................................. ILO STANDARDS TO ADDRESS VIOLENCE AGAINST MEN AND WOMEN IN THE WORLD OF WORK .............. 4 5 7 8 RECOMMENDATIONS TO THE ILO ...................................................................................... 9 FIGURES AND TABLES ........................................................................................................ 16 ABBREVIATIONS AND ACRONYMS .................................................................................... 17 METHODOLOGY ................................................................................................................ RESEARCH QUESTIONS .......................................................................................................... RESEARCH PHASE I: PRELIMINARY ANALYSIS OF GENDER BASED VIOLENCE AND RISK FACTORS ............... RESEARCH PHASE II: CASE AND CONTEXT STUDIES OF GENDER BASED VIOLENCE ................................. RESEARCH PHASE III: H&M FACTORY PROFILES AND RISK FACTOR SURVEY DATA ................................... RESEARCH CHALLENGES .......................................................................................................... 18 18 18 20 21 21 CHAPTER 1: GENDER BASED VIOLENCE IN THE WORLD OF WORK ..................................... EMERGING ILO STANDARDS ON VIOLENCE AND HARASSMENT IN THE WORLD OF WORK ....................... VIOLENCE IN THE WORLD OF WORK, RELATED TRENDS AND FORMS ................................................. GENDER BASED VIOLENCE ....................................................................................................... 25 25 26 26 CHAPTER 2: GARMENT GLOBAL PRODUCTION .................................................................. GLOBAL PRODUCTION NETWORKS ............................................................................................ GARMENT GLOBAL PRODUCTION NETWORKS .............................................................................. STRUCTURE OF GARMENT VALUE CHAINS ............................................................................. BRAND PURCHASING PRACTICES AND ACCELERATED WORK ...................................................... RELIANCE ON CONTRACT LABOUR ........................................................................................ SUBCONTRACTING .......................................................................................................... GENDER BASED VIOLENCE IN THE GARMENT INDUSTRY ................................................................. ASIAN GARMENT VALUE CHAINS ............................................................................................... BANGLADESH ............................................................................................... H&M in Bangladesh ........................................................................................ CAMBODIA ................................................................................................... H&M in Cambidia ........................................................................................... INDIA........................................................................................................... H&M in India ............................................................................................................... INDONESIA ................................................................................................... H&M in Indonesia .......................................................................................... 29 29 29 30 31 33 33 34 36 36 37 38 39 39 40 40 41 SRI LANKA..................................................................................................... H&M in Sri Lanka ............................................................................................ 42 43 CHAPTER 3: H&M CORPORATE SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY .................................................... PUBLIC DISCLOSURE ............................................................................................. STANDARDS FOR SUPPLIERS ....................................................................................... WAGE STANDARDS................................................................................................... GRIEVANCE CHANNELS.............................................................................................. FREEDOM OF ASSOCIATION ........................................................................................ AUDIT PROCESS...................................................................................................... 45 45 46 46 49 50 50 CHAPTER 4: SPECTRUM OF GENDER BASED VIOLENCE IN H&M GARMENT SUPPLY CHAINS VIOLENCE AGAINST A WOMAN BECAUSE SHE IS A WOMAN ................................................ VIOLENCE THAT DISPROPORTIONATELY IMPACTS WOMEN .................................................. ACTS THAT INFLICT SEXUAL HARM OR SUFFERING ............................................................... INDUSTRIAL DISCIPLINE PRACTICES ..................................................................................... Physical violence .......................................................................................................... Physical toll of garment work ........................................................................................ Verbal Abuse ............................................................................................................... Coercion, threats, and retaliaion .................................................................................. Deprivaions of liberty .................................................................................................. 53 53 53 57 61 62 63 65 66 67 CHAPTER 5: RISK FACTORS FOR VIOLENCE IN THE H&M SUPPLY CHAIN ............................. WORKING CONDITIONS ..................................................................................................... 1. Short term contracts ............................................................................................... 2. Producion targets .................................................................................................. 3. Failure to pay a living wage ..................................................................................... 4. Excessive hours of work and inadequate rest ........................................................... 5. Unsafe workplaces .................................................................................................. BARRIERS TO ACCOUNTABILITY ........................................................................................... 1. Unauthorized subcontracing .................................................................................. 2. Denial of freedom of associaion and collecive bargaining ....................................... 3. Inefecive grievance procedures ............................................................................. 4. Lack of independent monitoring .............................................................................. 71 71 71 74 76 82 84 85 85 86 90 91 RECOMMENDATIONS TO THE ILO ...................................................................................... 92 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ..................................................................................................... 98 BIBLIOGRAPHY ................................................................................................................. 99 15 16 CONTENTS CONTENTS FIGURES AND TABLES Figures Figure 1. Structure of garment supply chains Figure 2. Garment producion hubs in Bangladesh Figure 3. Garment producion hubs in Cambodia Figure 4. Garment producion hubs in India Figure 5. Garment producion hubs in Indonesia Figure 6. Garment producion hubs in Sri Lanka Figure 7. Gendered producion roles in H&M supplier factories in Bangladesh, Cambodia, and India Figure 8. Basic needs included in Asia Floor Wage calculaions Figure 9. Asia Floor Wage calculaions consider inancial dependents and corresponding responsibility of workers Tables Table 1. Spectrum of violence in H&M garment supply chains Table 2. Operatory labour pracices, workforce demographics, and associated working condiions in the garment sector Table 3. Methodology: H&M supplier factories invesigated between January and May 2018 Table 4. Share of retail prices for Indian workers and suppliers Table 5. Risk factors ideniied by the ILO Expert Commitee that expose garment workers to violence and harassment Table 6. Disinct minimum wages across locaions in Indonesia Table 7. Asia Floor Wage igures in local currencies ABBREVIATIONS AND ACRONYMS AFWA AFWA-C AFWA-I BGMEA BKMEA BLA BNPS CATU CBA CCAWDU CCC CEDAW CENTRAL COVC DIFE DIR DoL EPZ EWAIRA FoA FGD GDP GMAC GPN GSC HRW ICCPR ICESCR ILC ILO ILRF MFA MoLE MLVT RMG SLD TATA TCLF TNC TTP UNCTAD WTO Asia Floor Wage Alliance Asia Floor Wage Cambodia Asia Floor Wage Indonesia Bangladesh Garments Manufacturers and Exporters Associaion Bangladesh Knitwear Manufacturers and Exporters Associaion Bangladesh Labour Act Bangladesh Labour Act Bangladesh Nari Progai Sangha Cambodian Alliance of Trade Unions Collecive Bargaining Agent Coaliion of Cambodian Apparel Workers Democraic Union Clean Clothes Campaign Convenion on Eliminaion of All Forms of Discriminaion against Women Center for Alliance of Labor and Human Rights Code of Vendor Conduct Department of Inspecion of Factory and Establishment Department of Industrial Relaions Department of Labour Export Processing Zones EPZ Workers Associaion and Industrial Relaions Act Freedom of Associaion Focus Group Disscussion Gross Domesic Product Garment Manufacturers Associaion in Cambodia Global Producion Network Generalized System of Preference Human Rights Watch Internaional Covenant on Civil and Poliical Rights Internaional Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights Internaional Labour Conference Internaional Labour Organizaion Internaional Labour Rights Forum Muli–Fiber Agreement Ministry of Labor and Employment Ministry of Labour and Vocaional Training Ready Made Garment Society for Labour and Development Texiles and Apparel Trade Agreement Texile, Clothing, Leather and Footwear Transnaional Corporaion Texile and Texile Products United Naions Conference on Trade and Development World Trade Organizaion 17 18 CONTENTS CONTENTS METHODOLOGY This report is based upon 3 years of Asia Floor Wage Alliance documentation of decent work violations and gender based violence in H&M garment supply chains. It includes the results of interviews and focus group discussions with 331 workers employed in 32 H&M supplier factories across Bangladesh, Cambodia, India, Indonesia, and Sri Lanka. Research questions: Our most recent invesigaion of gender based violence in H&M garment supplier factories was conducted between January 2018 and May 2018 in Dhaka, Bangladesh; Phnom Penh, Cambodia; West Java and North Jakarta, Indonesia; Bangalore, Gurgaon, and Tiruppur, India; and in Vavuniya District, Northern Province, Sri Lanka. • Field invesigaion of gender based violence in H&M factories in Bangladesh, Cambodia, India, Indonesia, and Sri Lanka was conducted by Development Synergy Insitute in Bangladesh; CATU and CENTRAL in Cambodia; Society for Labour and Development in India; Sedane Labour Resource Centre/Lembaga Informasi Perburuhan in Indonesia; and Asia Floor Wage Alliance in Sri Lanka. Field research was coordinated by the research team at the Society for Labour and Development (SLD), the current Secretariat for Asia Floor Wage Alliance (AFWA). This report also revisits Asia Floor Wage Alliance (2016) documentaion of rights violaions at work in H&M garment global supply chains in Cambodia and India, compiled through survey-based and case study research conducted between August and October 2015 in Guragaon, India; and Bogor, Indonesia. This research seeks to answer three interrelated quesions: • • What are the gendered forms of violence and harassment women garment workers experience in H&M garment supply chains in Bangladesh, Cambodia, India, Indonesia, and Sri Lanka? How does gender interact with risk factors for violence and harassment ariculated by the ILO Experts Commitee to expose women garment workers to this spectrum of gender based violence? How have trade unions and workers’ collecives taken efecive acion to address gender based violence in global producion networks in Asia? Research phase I: Preliminary analysis of gender based violence and risk factors In research phase one, researchers conducted focus group discussions with women workers employed in H&M garment supply chains and trade union leaders engaged in organizing workers in H&M supply chains. The goals of this research phase were both to understand gender based violence and associated risk factors; and to address gender based violence by training women workers to idenify and respond to workplace violence. Focus group discussions sought to idenify forms of gender based violence in the workplace and risk factors for violence. In idenifying forms of gender based violence, researchers used the deiniion of gender based violence set out in Cambodian garment workers in a ‘know your rights’ training with the Cambodian Alliance of Trade Unions (CATU). The workers pictured are not from factories interviewed for this report. Copyright 2018 Patrick Lee for Asia Floor Wage Alliance General recommendaion 19 adopted by the Commitee on the Eliminaion of Discriminaion against Women (CEDAW). Researchers used risk factors ideniied in the October 2016 Conclusions by the Meeing of Experts on ‘Violence against Women and Men in the World of Work’ as a benchmark for understanding risk factors for violence in H&M garment supply chains. Phase one focus group discussions included 80 women workers engaged in H&M supply chains in Bangladesh, Cambodia, India, Indonesia, and Sri Lanka. This sample includes workers from 16 diferent H&M supplier factories. The vast majority of women workers who engaged in focus group discussions worked as sewing machine operators. Women workers interviewed for this study had been employed in the garment industry for up to 20 years. Respondents also included male and female supervisors, helpers, and checkers; women workers employed as helpers in the inishing department; and male workers employed in quality control and as store keepers. 19 20 CONTENTS Respondents included women who are members of trade unions or workers collecives and those who are not. In Sri Lanka and Cambodia, all women interviewed for this study reported membership in a trade union or workers collecive. In Bangladesh, India, and Indonesia, by contrast, some of the women paricipants were members of trade unions or workers collecives and others were not. All focus group discussions were conducted in person with full consent from workers. In order to protect the idenity of workers who paricipated in this study, all individual names have been changed. Research phase II: Case and context studies of gender based violence In research phase two, researchers conducted case and context studies to develop in depth accounts of the forms of gender based violence in the workplace and risk factors for violence ideniied in research phase one. Research phase two case studies documented incidents of gender based violence in the H&M garment supply chain experienced and recounted by individual women workers, including case studies of sexual harassment, persistent and ongoing verbal harassment, retaliaion for reporing sexual violence, and barriers to seeking relief, including management and state inacion in response to complaints. It also includes in depth documentaion of a 2018 case of violent retaliaion against women garment workers in Bangalore, India who formed a union to call for safe drinking water in the factory, reliable transportaion, and living wages. CONTENTS Worker strategies In Cambodia, the Cambodian Alliance of Trade Unions (CATU) regularly runs ‘know your rights’ trainings for workers in garment and footwear factories. participants in CENTRAL’s FGDs from H&M suppliers all reported that they did not know what forms of violence in the workplace were against the law. CATU’s trainings aim to inform Cambodian garment workers about their rights under the Law, covering elements of the Criminal Code, the Labour Law and the Law on Trade Unions. Through organising and supporting garment workers and expanding their knowledge of their rights under Cambodian law, CATU is helping to develop a new generation of union leadership in Cambodia. Research phase two context studies sought to document working condiions that place women garment workers at rouine risk of gender based violence. For instance, researchers documented extreme pressure to complete producion targets where women face rouine physical violence including slapping and throwing large bundles of clothes and smaller sharp projeciles, such as scissors; and verbal abuse. Researchers also documented barriers to reporing workplace violence, including high levels of job insecurity and threats of iring among temporary workers. Finally, by compleing detailed “day in the life” accounts, researchers documented deprivaions of liberty including being forced to work through legally mandated breaks, forced overime, and relocaion of workers between factories and buildings without prior consent. Research phase III: H&M factory profiles and risk factor survey data In research phase III, AFWA partners completed in-depth factory proiles of 6 H&M factories, including 3 factories from Bangladesh, 2 factories from Cambodia, and 1 factory from India. These factory proiles provide a demographic snapshot of the H&M garment supply chain workforce that demonstrates the concentraion of women workers in temporary, low-wage producion jobs within the garment supply chain. Factory proiles also sought to understand working condiions, presence of trade unions, and dispute resoluion mechanisms. Due to concerns about retaliaion among Asia Floor Wage Alliance partner unions, this report does not name the supplier factories proiled in Bangladesh, India, Indonesia and Sri Lanka. These factory proiles are contextualized by survey-based and case study research on violaions of internaional labour standards in H&M garment producion factories conducted between August and October 2015 in Delhi, India and Phnom Penh, Cambodia. This sample includes structured interviews with 251 workers employed in 16 factories across in Cambodia and India that supplied garments to H&M at the ime. Research challenges Stigma and retaliation associated with reporting gender based violence Sigma and risk of retaliaion associated with gender based violence leads many women workers to hide their experience of violence. Therefore, it required signiicant efort from researchers to idenify potenial respondents. In order to navigate this challenge, where possible, researchers worked in teams including both male and female researchers. They also sought partnerships with AFWA network members in order to facilitate access to engage with women workers. All interviewees were assured that their idenity and any idenifying case informaion would remain conidenial. 21 22 CONTENTS Table 3: H&M supplier factories invesigated between January and May 2018 Dhaka, Bangladesh • Bangladesh factory 1 (including factory proile), Ashulia, Dhaka, 2,735 workers • Bangladesh factory 2 (including factory proile), Ashulia, Dhaka, 4,281 workers • Bangladesh factory 3 (including factory proile), Ashulia, Dhaka, 2,348 workers • Bangladesh factory 4, Ashulia, Dhaka, 1,100 workers • Bangladesh factory 5, Ashulia, Dhaka, 2,500 workers • Bangladesh factory 6, Ashulia, Dhaka, 1,200 workers Phnom Penh, Cambodia • Roo Hsing Garment Co., Ltd. (including factory proile), Phnom Penh, 5,050 workers • Yi Da Manufacturer Co. Ltd. (including factory proile), Phnom Penh, 156 workers CONTENTS As explained by Emelia Yani. Siahaan, General Secretary of the Indonesia Federaion of Independent Trade Unions (GSBI), women workers face surveillance by factory managements even outside the factory gates: Women workers are afraid to talk to anyone outside the factory about the violence and rights violaions they face. Supervisors have been known to pay people living and working in the areas outside the factory to report workers if they are seen speaking to people from outside the factory. I’ll give you an example. I went with a photographer to the export processing zone in Jakarta. She took a close-up photograph of a woman worker outside the factory. This was reported to the supervisor and the woman lost her job. Respondents who did engage with the research team were, for the most part, paricularly unwilling to discuss instances of sexual violence. Field researchers were trained not to persist with lines of quesioning if they recognized any signs that the conversaion might re-traumaize survivors. Accordingly, while our research uncovered cases of sexual violence, these cases have not been included in our research indings. Bangalore, Faridabad, Gurugram (Gurgaon), and Tiruppur, India • India, Factory 1 (including factory proile), Gurugram (Gurgaon), Haryana, India, 574 workers • India, Factory 2, Faridabad, Haryana, India, 4,500 workers • India, Factory 3, Bangalore, Karnataka, India, 4,000 workers • India, Factory 4, Bangalore, Karnataka, India, 3,000 workers • India, Factory 5, Chinnakarai, Tirupur, approximately 1,300 workers Bogor and North Jarkarta, Indonesia • Indonesia factory 1, Nusantara Bonded Zone, Cakung, North Jakarta, 7,000 workers • Indonesia factory 2, Bogor, West Java Vavuniya District, North Province, Sri Lanka • Sri Lanka factory 1, Vavuniya District, North Province, Sri Lanka, 840 workers Note: In Sri Lanka, a signiicant percentage of women workers employed in H&M supplier factories are employed through “manpower”—or temporary work agencies—as needed. Under this arrangement, the number of workers employed in the factory can difer signiicantly depending upon the orders that have been received for the day. Accordingly, even trade union leaders familiar with the H&M supplier factories under invesigaion were unable to provide accurate counts of the number of workers in each department. Copyright Rajan Zaveri for Society for Labour and Development 23 24 CONTENTS CONTENTS CHAPTER 1: Gender based violence in the world of work Emerging ILO standards on violence and harassment in the world of work At its 325th Session (October–November 2015), the Governing Body of the Internaional Labour Oice decided that in June 2018, the Internaional Labour Conference (ILC) will hold triparite deliberaions to develop standards to address violence and harassment in the world of work. The proposed ILO Convenion and Recommendaion on violence in the world of work is a imely opportunity to adopt an inclusive deiniion of violence and establish a framework within which governments, employers, companies and unions can take acion to tackle the problem. The October 2016 report on the outcomes of the Meeing of Experts on ‘Violence against Women and Men in the World of Work’ presents a detailed set of risk factors for violence in the world of work that lends insight into the condiions under which violence is more likely to occur. These include risk factors associated with the nature and seing of work as well as the structure of the labour market. Garment workers in a Bangladesh garment factory. Workers pictured were not interviewed for this report. By Mona Mijthab from Wikimedia Commons The Commitee acknowledged that while violence can potenially afect everyone, speciic groups are disproporionately impacted (GB.328/ INS/17/5, para. 6). The 2016 Commitee Report highlights that women workers may be paricularly at risk (GB.328/INS/17/5, Appendix I, para. 11). Consistent with this acknowledgement, the Conclusions adopted by the Meeing call for speciic acion to address the gender dimensions of violence (GB.328/INS/17/5, Appendix I, para. 2). As ariculated by the Report following the 2016 Experts Meeing, a (an) efecive instrument(s) will be both suiciently focused and lexible enough to address diferent socio-economic realiies, diferent types of enterprises, and diferent forms of violence and harassment, as well as diferent contexts. Such (an) instrument(s) should also be able to respond to the new challenges and risks which might lead to violence and harassment in the world of work, such as those arising from changing forms of work and technology (GB.328/ INS/17/5, Appendix I, para. 18). In paricular, the 2016 Experts Meeing Report points to the need to extend coverage of Occupaional Health and Safety (OHS) and other legal protecions relevant to violence and harassment in the world of work to excluded workers, groups and sectors by idenifying and closing gaps (GB.328/INS/17/5, Appendix I, para. 18). Finally, the Director-General of the ILO emphasized the need for beter data on persistent violence and harassment in the world of work against workers and others (GB.328/INS/17/5, para. 4). Responding to this call, this research aims to contribute up to date evidence on persistent gender-based violence and harassment against women garment workers in H&M supply chains in Bangladesh, Cambodia, India, Indonesia and Sri Lanka, many of whom are also migrant workers. In addiion to the October 2016 Meeing of Experts Report, the Internaional Labour Oice released Report V(1) seing out the law and pracice in diferent countries, and a quesionnaire that was transmited to member States in May 2017. A total of 85 governments sent their replies to the Oice, with 50 of them indicaing that the most representaive organizaions of employers and workers had been consulted. The Report V(2) and proposed Conclusions were prepared on the basis of the replies received from governments and organizaions of employers and workers. 25 26 CONTENTS CONTENTS Violence in the world of work, related trends and forms women’s increased paricipaion in the labour market, has in many cases been in non-standard and precarious forms of employment, typiied by informal, low-paid and poorly protected work. This makes women especially vulnerable to physical, verbal and sexual harassment and violence. (Pillinger 2017: ix-x). According to the Commitee of Experts convened by the ILO in October 2016, “violence and harassment” include a coninuum of unacceptable behaviors and pracices that are likely to result in physical, psychological or sexual harm or sufering. Gender based violence Violence and harassment in the world of work encompass violence in the public or private sector, or in the formal or informal economy (GB.328/ INS/17/5, Appendix I, para. 4). Violence in the world of work includes violence and harassment that take place not only in physical workplaces, but also in a broader spectrum of sites that relect the evoluion of work contexts, including: commuing, work-related social events, public spaces, teleworking and, in some contexts, the home (GB.328/INS/17/5, para. 8). Within these spaces, violence can be “horizontal or verical”; from sources internal to the workplace, or external sources such as clients, other third paries, and public authoriies. Violence and harassment may be a one-of occurrence or repeated (GB.328/INS/17/5, Appendix I, para. 7). The coninuum of violence described above includes gender-based violence (GB.328/ INS/17/5, para. 7). It has been a consistent recommendaion on the part of naional and global unions that gender-based violence be given special atenion in the proposed ILO standard, since women are disproporionately afected by violence in the world of work (Pillinger 2017: xiii). Changing paterns of work, and paricularly The October 2016 report of the Commitee of Experts on ‘Violence against women and men in the world of work,’ calls for speciic acion to address the gendered dimensions of violence (GB.328/INS/17/5, Appendix I, para. 2). General recommendaion No. 19 on violence against women, adopted by the Commitee on the Eliminaion of Discriminaion against Women (CEDAW) deines gender based violence as “violence which is directed against a woman because she is a woman or that afects women disproporionately’, and, as such, is a violaion of their human rights” (aricle 1). Forms of gender based violence named by General recommendaion No. 19 include acts that inlict physical harm, mental harm, sexual harm or sufering, threats of the any of these acts, coercion, and deprivaions of liberty. As explained by General recommendaion No. 35 on gender-based violence against women, released on July 14, 2017, for over 25 years the pracice of States paries and the opinions of jurists have endorsed the Commitee’s interpretaion of gender based violence in recommendaion No. 19. According to recommendaion No. 35, the prohibiion of gender based violence against women has evolved into a principle of customary internaional law (paragraph 2). General recommendation No. 35 emphasizes that gender based violence is a social rather than an individual problem, requiring comprehensive responses that extend beyond specific events, individual perpetrators, and victims/survivors (para. 9). The Committee further underscores that gender-based violence against women is one of the fundamental social, political, and economic means by which the subordination of women with respect to men is perpetuated (para. 10). General recommendaions No. 28 and No. 33— on the core obligaion of States paries under aricle 2 of CEDAW and women’s access to jusice, respecively—conirms that discriminaion against women is inextricably linked to other axes of discriminaion. These include: ethnicity/ race, indigenous or minority status, colour, socioeconomic status and/or caste, language, religion or belief, poliical opinion, naional origin, marital and/or maternal status, age, urban/ rural locaion, health status, disability, property ownership, being lesbian, bisexual, transgender or intersex, illiteracy, traicking of women, armed conlict, seeking asylum, being a refugee, internal displacement, statelessness, migraion, heading households, widowhood, living with HIV/ AIDS, deprivaion of liberty, being in prosituion, geographical remoteness and sigmaisaion of women ighing for their rights, including human rights defenders (No. 35, para. 12). Indonesian women from the Federaion of Independent Trade Unions (GSBI) demonstrate against rights violaions in the garment industry. Like many human rights defenders, they are at risk of violent retaliaion. 27 28 CONTENTS CONTENTS CHAPTER 2: Garment Global Production This secion aims to situate new empirical indings on gender based violence in H&M factories in Bangladesh, Cambodia, India, Indonesia, and Sri Lanka within the broader context of global producion networks in general and the garment global producion network in paricular. This basic overview outlines key shits in employment relaionships as producion processes evolve to include several companies across muliple countries. It also ideniies trends in concentraion of control over producion processes across various actors in the garment global producion network. These features of work in the garment supply chain produce a gendered global labour force with gendered paterns of labour recruitment and discipline that expose women garment workers to risks of workplace violence. Global production networks Brands like H&M, headquartered in high-income countries, outsource producion to supplier irms in developing countries. The Global Producion Network (GPN) is a term that describes these contemporary producion systems, characterized by producion processes that involve several companies across muliple countries. Companies linked through GPNs are related through various legal forms, with exchanges between irms structured so that muli-naional or transnaional corporaions (TNCs) do not legally own overseas subsidiaries or franchisees but only outsource producion to them. The UNCTAD World Investment Report 2013 notes the structure and prevalence of this mode of producion: Copyright 2018 Natalie Leifer for Asia Floor Wage Today’s global economy is characterized by global value chains (GVCs), in which intermediate goods and services are traded in fragmented and internaionally dispersed producion processes. GVCs are typically coordinated by TNCs, with cross-border trade of inputs and outputs taking place within their networks of ailiates, contractual partners and arm’s-length suppliers. TNC-coordinated GVCs account for some 80 per cent of global trade. (UNCTAD 2013) As described by UNCTAD, GPNs shit market relaionships between irms from trade relaionships to quasi-producion relaionships without the risks of ownership. Within this model, TNCs drive coordinated producion of goods while disbursing risk associated with market luctuaions across global value chains. Garment global production networks The Texile, Clothing, Leather and Footwear (TCLF) industry is characterized by geographically dispersed producion and rapid, market-driven changes (ILO 2016). Brands engage in highvalue market research, design, sales, markeing, and inancial services. They typically outsource garment producion to Tier 1 companies. Tier 1 companies may, in turn, subcontract some or all of the garment producion process to manufacturing companies known as suppliers. This producion structure allows brands and retailers to drive coordinated producion of goods by capitalizing upon new technology, relaxed regulatory frameworks, and a supply of low-wage labour in developing countries (Ghosh 2015). While brands and retailers do not carry out producion, they drive sourcing and producion paterns overseas. This producion model has been characterized as a buyer-driven value chain (Barria 2014). 29 30 CONTENTS CONTENTS 31 Figure 1: Structure of garment supply chains Segment 1: raw material supply, including natural and synthetic fibers; Segment 2: Component supply, including yarn and fabrics Segment 3: production networks, including domestic and overseas subcontractors Segment 4: export channels established by trade intermediaries Segment 5: marketing networks at the retail level The structure of garment value chains can be divided into ive main segments (Figure 1). • Segment 1: raw material supply, including natural and syntheic ibers; • Segment 2: component supply, including yarn and fabrics; • Segment 3: producion networks, including domesic and overseas subcontractors; • Segment 4: export channels established by trade intermediaries; • Segment 5: markeing networks at the retail level. (Ghosh 2015) segments: Assembly (segment 3) is typically separated organizaionally and geographically from other value-generaing aspects of the value chain. Product suppliers and their workers (segment 3) depend upon orders from markeing networks, irms, and brands (segment 5). Firms that control design, branding, and markeing (segment 5) also control sourcing decisions. Producion costs are one signiicant factor in determining sourcing preferences. Decisions regarding how value addiion aciviies and proits are distributed along the value chain, in turn, have a signiicant impact upon employers, workers and markets in producing countries. Proit generaion by capitalizing upon price diferenials between markets has been referred to as “global labour arbitrage”(Roach 2004). Value created in the garment value chain is substanially captured by brands, while suppliers get only a small share, and workers in supplier irms even less. According to 2016 ield work conducted by the Society for Labour and Development, Indian supplier irms and the workers they hire receive a combined 23-34% share of retail prices. Only 2.9%-4.2% of the share of retail prices are directed toward worker wages (Table 4). Brand purchasing practices and accelerated work Business relaionships between brands and suppliers are governed by purchasing pracices that impact the funcioning of supplier irms and, in turn, working condiions in these irms. The ascendance of fast fashion and pressure on brands to reduce costs following the 2008 Great Recession inform contemporary purchasing pracices. While prior to the Great Recession, suppliers report quoing lump-sum costs for orders, today, it is common for suppliers to esimate costs per item and then bargain with brands. Suppliers project Table 4: Share of retail prices for Indian workers and suppliers Garment Type US retail prices Price paid to Indian share of Indian supplier retail price (%) factories Ladies top 25 8.50 34.0 Ladies dress 34 11.00 32.3 Kids top 20 5.50 27.5 Kids dress 25 6.50 26.0 Ladies skirt 34 8.00 23.5 Wages as share of Indian factory prices 8.05 % Indian wages as share of US retail price 4.2% 4.0 % 3.4 % 3.2% 2.9 % 32 CONTENTS CONTENTS H&M Fast Fashion The multi-national Swedish company H&M releases two main collections during the year: Fall and Spring. These main collections generally have longer lead times— anywhere from three to six months— and clothing is typically manufactured in Asian garment factories. This is likely due to comparatively cheap production costs in supplier factories in Asia, facilitating lower cost for larger, long-term production items. Seasonal launches, however, are distinct across countries and markets. According to the 2017 H&M Annual Report: To optimise fashion precision, the group buys items on an ongoing basis throughout the season. Fashion is becoming increasingly global, but shopping patterns vary between different markets andsales channels. The start of a season and the length of that season can vary from country to country, for example. Delivery dates and product volumes for the various markets and channels are therefore adjusted accordingly.” (p. 66) In order to compensate for shifting trends, H&M also releases several sub-collections throughout the year. These sub-collections range from emerging styles—floral print or denim—to partnering with well-known figures and fashion designers such as Ace Tee and Tomas Berdych. Due to the quick turn-around nature of these collections, production typically stays in Europe (close to H&M’s headquarters) with shorter lead times ranging from two to six weeks. Copyright 2018 Natalie Leifer for Asia Floor Wage labour costs based upon minimum wages, rather than living wages; and ten-hour days, including two hours of overime, rather than eight-hour working days. These projecions lend insight into the rouine pracice by suppliers of paying only normal wages for overime rather than the double-wage rate required under many labour law regimes (Nathan and Kumar 2016). Current purchasing pracices relect the rise of fast fashion. Where the norm was previously four style seasons each year, the Zara brand pioneered changing styles monthly, or even every two weeks. Today, it is common for brands to release between eight and ten style seasons each year (Nathan and Kumar 2016). In addiion to meeing rapid turnover in styles, suppliers may also receive irregular, repeat orders for items in high demand. Fast fashion accelerates producion cycles and shortens lead-ime for suppliers. Garment, texile, and leather suppliers report inadequate lead imes and rouinely face ines for failing to meet order imes (Vaughan-Whitehead and Caro 2017). Accelerated producion imelines without adequate lead-ime drive worker producion targets. Producion targets are typically set based upon samples made by highly skilled sample tailors. Regular line tailors may not be able to complete daily quotas (Nathan and Kumar 2016). Short lead imes and corresponding high quotas lead suppliers to demand high speed turnover and forced overime from garment workers (VaughanWhitehead and Caro 2017). As detailed in Chapter 5 of this report, atempts by supervisors and line managers to drive worker producivity expose women workers to industrial discipline pracices, including verbal and physical abuse. Reliance on contract labour Since 2010, garment brand and retail members of the UK Ethical Trading Iniiaive (ETI) have reported an increasing reliance on contract labour within garment value chains, marked by a growth in the proporion of the workforce that consists of contract workers. Contract workers cost less to employ per unit because they oten receive lower wages and rarely receive non-wage beneits, including paid leave and social security beneits. These terms of employment leave contract workers paricularly vulnerable to exploitaion, with poorer working condiions and a higher risk of serious abuse when compared to directly employed workers (Chan 2013). Rise in employment of contract workers has been atributed to buyer purchasing pracices: downward pressure on the prices paid to suppliers combined with increasingly unpredictable and extreme seasonal variaion in producion, together, require garment suppliers to employ a lexible, low-wage work force. Subcontracting Tier 1 companies holding primary contracts with brands oten subcontract producion to smaller suppliers. At this level of the value chain, Tier 1 companies compete for contracts with buyers. In a parallel process, subcontractors compete for contracts with Tier 1 companies (Ghosh 2015). Brands typically draw a disincion between their liability for authorized and unauthorized subcontracts. Unauthorized subcontractors may also be unregistered and therefore outside the purview of government regulaion. 33 34 CONTENTS Due to diminished government and brand accountability—especially among unregistered suppliers, working condiions among garment subcontractors have been found to deteriorate (Kashyap 2015). Within this structure, employers and workers engaged in assembly operaions, including primary sitching and embellishment, have comparaively litle negoiaing power (Ghosh 2015). Due to the structure of garment value chains, workers bear the brunt of global uncertainties within the industry. Industrial uncertainty caused by buyer purchasing practices is displaced upon workers through the use of flexible job contracts, unemployment during fluctuations in production, and downward pressure on wages. Obstacles to freedom of association and collective bargaining further undermine workers’ negotiation power. Gender based violence in the garment industry Women workers employment in garment supply chains are overwhelmingly employed in nonstandard and precarious forms of employment, typiied by informal, low-paid and poorly protected work. Scholarship on gender in the global economy has long documented how gender hierarchies are produced and maintained in relaion to transnaional circuits of labour mobilizaion and capital accumulaion. In varied, locally speciic ways, internaional capital relies upon gendered ideologies and social relaions CONTENTS to recruit and discipline workers, producing segmented labour forces within and between countries (Mills 2003). Patriarchal norms that devalue women’s labour reinforce gendered segmentation of the labour force. Gendered patterns of industrial discipline and patriarchal infantilization of women workers conspire to make women especially vulnerable to physical, verbal, and sexual harassment and violence. The 2017 study on Violence and Harassment Against Women and Men in the World of Work: Trade Union Perspecives and Acion, released by the Internaional Labour Oice, calls for atenion to new and emerging risks in the workplace, including work pressures, changes in work organizaion, and long working hours in manufacturing and other sectors (Pillinger 2017: xiii-xiv). The experience of Asia Floor Wage Alliance partners working with low-wage, informal sector garment workers engaged at the base of global producion networks reveals that garment workers are subjected to many of the risk factors for violence in the world of work named by the ILO Expert Commitee (Table 5). Gender based violence is a subset of the coninuum of violence addressed by emerging conversaions on Violence and harassment in the world of work. This research lends insight into how these risk factors conspire to make gender based violence and harassment a regular and lived reality for women garment workers. This approach recognizes that women are disproporionately afected by violence due to the impact of gendered inequaliies, discriminaion, roles, relaions, stereotypes, patriarchy, and unequal power relaions (Pillinger 2017; ix). Enumerated risk factors from Commitee of Experts Conclusions, October 2016, para. 9 • Working in situaions that are not properly covered or protected by labour law and social protecion. • Working in resource-constrained seings (inadequately equipped faciliies or insuicient staing). • Unsocial working hours (for instance, evening and night work) Addiional risk factors Commitee of Experts Conclusions, October 2016, para. 10 • High rates of unemployment. • Unrealisic producion targets. • Poor labour relaions • Discriminatory pracices. • Culture of impunity. Addiional risk factors Commitee of Experts Conclusions, October 2016, para. 12 • Imbalanced power relaionships, including due to gender, race and ethnicity, social origin, educaion, poverty, disability, HIV status, sexual orientaion and gender idenity, migrant status and age. • Workplaces where the workforce is dominated by one gender or ethnicity might be more hosile to people not conforming to established gender norms or individuals coming from under-represented groups. • Intersecing grounds of discriminaion, such as gender and race or disability. • Culture of impunity. Addiional risk factors Commitee of Experts Conclusions, October 2016, para. 13 • Workers who cannot exercise their rights to freedom of associaion and collecive bargaining, due to the inappropriate use of contractual arrangements leading to decent work deicits, including the misuse of self-employment, are also likely to be more at risk of violence and harassment. Addiional risk factors Commitee of Experts Conclusions, October 2016, para. 14 • Concentraion of women workers in low-wage jobs, especially in the lower iers of the supply chains. • Work in the home where workers are isolated and labour inspectors cannot enter non-tradiional workplaces. Addiional risk factors Commitee of Experts Conclusions, October 2016, para. 15 • Weak enforcement mechanisms, including understafed and poorly equipped and insuiciently trained labour inspectorates. • Labour inspectorates and occupaional safety and health (OSH) systems at diferent levels not mandated to address discriminatory pracices or violence and harassment. • Absence of efecive and accessible dispute resoluion mechanisms is an addiional risk factor. Table 5: Risk factors ideniied by the ILO Expert Commitee that expose garment workers to violence and harassment 35 36 CONTENTS Although economic vulnerability and poverty may prevent women workers from gaining economic independence and leaving situaions of domesic violence, presening yet another link between gender inequality and persistent violence, the impact of wages on violence in the home is outside the scope of this research. CONTENTS Rights, however, there are more than 7,000 factories producing for the garment export market (Labowitz 2015). DHAKA 86.4% Asian garment value chains Globally, Asia tops apparel exports worldwide. In 2016, more than 55.4% of the $443 billion dollars in global apparel exports originated from 7 Asian countries —in order of market share: China, Bangladesh, Vietnam, India, Hong Kong, Indonesia, and Cambodia (WTO 2016). Due to a range of factors—including poor capacity, limited resources, infrastructural needs and, in some cases, adverse disposiion towards protecive labour standards—naional labour standards in producing countries remain weak. Proclivity toward driving down labour standards, furthermore, is oten linked to dominant global policy frameworks that prescribe labour deregulaion as a prerequisite to atracing investment capital (Ghosh 2015). The following secions provide an overview of garment value chains in Bangladesh, Cambodia, India, Indonesia, and Sri Lanka. These countrylevel overviews provide basic informaion on market structure and workforce demographics. Bangladesh Bangladesh is the second largest exporter of Ready Made Garments (RMGs) in the world— second only to China. Today, the RMG sector is one of the key contributors to the Bangladesh Chittagong 13.5% Figure 2: Garment producion hubs in Bangladesh economy in terms of employment, producion, export, and foreign exchange earnings. The RMG currently contributes 17% of the Bangladeshi GDP and accounts for 81% of Bangladeshi export earnings. In 2016-17, export earnings from RMG alone amounted to 28,149.84 million USD (BGMEA 2018). The Bangladeshi RMG industry exports mainly t-shirts, trousers, jackets and sweater to 37 countries worldwide. In 2014-2015, Bangladesh exported 61% of RMG products to EU countries and 21% to the US. According to informaion from the Bangladesh Department of Inspecion of Factory and Establishment (DIFE), about 4,809 garment factories operated in Bangladesh in 2018 (DIFE 2018). RMG factories are mainly concentrated in two divisions of the country—Dhaka (86.4%) and Chitagong (13.5%). According to government igures another 144 garments factories operate in the export processing zones (BEPZA 2013). According to a June 2015 report by the New York University Stern Center for Business and Human The RMG sector is also the largest formal sector industrial employer in Bangladesh, generaing 59% of total formal sector employment in the country (Hossain 2010). According to DIFE esimates the Bangladeshi RMG industry presently employs around 2.2 million workers (DIFE 2016). The Bangladesh Garment Manufacturers Associaion (BGMEA), however, places the number of RMG employees higher, at 4 million workers. According to DIFE, workers are 52% female and 48% male—however, researchers, labour unions and acivists in Bangladesh esimate that over 80% of Bangaldeshi garment workers are female. This discrepancy between government and other esimates regarding the number of factories and workers engaged in the RMG industry in Bangladesh can be explained by the signiicant presence of informal, unregistered and unregulated factories. In a June 2015 survey of two sub-districts of Dhaka, researchers found that 32% of the 479 factories surveyed were informal subcontractors. 91% of informal factories surveyed produced for export. Informal factories are enirely outside the ambit of regulaion. They do not register with the government, naional trade associaions of apparel manufacturers or foreign brands (Labowitz 2015). Informal sector workers are paricularly vulnerable to abuse because they fall outside the ambit of regulaion. They also work for employers that oten operate on such slim margins that they cannot invest in even basic safety precauions. Unauthorized subcontracing also contributes to ariicially depressing prices by failing to account for the full cost of producion in accordance with minimum labour standards (Labowitz 2015). H&M in Bangladesh According to the most recent H&M Supplier List, H&M purchases apparel from 308 garment supplier factories, located in Chitagong, Dhaka, Gazipur, Savar, Tongi, and Valuka. As of May 2018, H&M had sourced from four conirmed Bangladeshi factories this year. These igures do not, however, account for an addiional 182 shipments from Bangladesh to H&M in the USA which could not be tracked to speciic factories due to the use of either third party shipping companies, or factories that receive subcontracts from Tier 1 H&M Inc. supplier factories. Accordingly, there is a broad consensus among labour experts interviewed for this study that H&M is most likely producing garments in many more factories than the 4 garment supplier factories conirmed by Asia Floor Wage Alliance researchers. As of May 2018, conirmed Bangladeshi supplier factories had exported approximately 106,957 kilograms of goods to H&M in the USA. Taken together with the 7,196,122 kilograms of goods which could not be tracked to speciic factories, these 7,303,079 kilograms of goods shipped from Bangladesh to H&M in the USA accounts for approximately 5% of Bangladesh’s exports to the USA for the period January to May 2018. Analysis of shipping data indicated that products produced in Bangladesh for H&M consisted primarily of sweaters, woven pants, t-shirts, jackets and underwear. 37 38 CONTENTS CONTENTS Cambodia Cambodia entered the export-oriented global garment and texile industry in the 1990s with the passage of the 1993 Consituion of the Kingdom of Cambodia which established a free market in Cambodia (CCC 2016a; CCHR 2014). Between 1995 and 2006, bilateral trade agreements with the United States, the European Union and Canada spurred growth in the garment industry. With the excepion of a downturn in 2008 during the global economic crisis, the industry has shown consistent growth (Kashyap 2015). Between 1995 and 2014, the sector grew 200-fold (ILO 2015). Today, garment and texile exports are criical to the Cambodian economy. In 2016, Cambodia’s exports totaled $9.1 billion USD, of which over $2.3 billion came from the garment and footwear sectors (World Bank, 2017). In 2017, garment exports increased, reaching $3.3 billion in the irst six months of the year (World Bank, 2017). Figure 3: Garment producion hubs in Cambodia Kampong Chhnang Koh Kong Kampong Cham Phnom Penh Krong Svay Rieng The US, EU, Canada and Japan are the largest importers of Cambodian garments, texiles and shoes (Kashyap 2015). In the irst half of 2017, the EU (including the UK) accounted for approximately 45% of Cambodia’s garment and texile exports, with the USA and Japan accouning for 25% and 9% respecively (World Bank 2017). At the ime of wriing, top brands sourcing from Cambodia include H&M, GAP, Levi Strauss & Co., Adidas and Target (CCC 2016a). Other top sourcing brands include C&A and VF Corporaion. The Cambodian garment industry is largely foreign-owned, with Cambodians owning less than 10% of factories (Kashyap 2015). An esimated 85% of garment factories located in Cambodia are foreign controlled, predominantly by investors from China, Hong Kong, Malaysia, Singapore, South Korea and Taiwan (Kashyap 2015; CCC 2016). Foreign owned companies have kept the producion processes within Cambodia limited. The majority of factories undertake “cutmake-trim” producion funcions—manufacturing clothes from imported texiles based upon designs provided by internaional buyers. This exclusive focus on producing garments circumscribes the range of employment available to irms and workers in Cambodia (Ghosh 2015). Phnom Penh is a hub for garment factories. However, garment producion has expanded to other areas, including the adjoining Kandal province. Smaller hubs exist in Kampong Cham, Kampong Speu, Sihanoukville and Kampong Chhnang. Factories have also been drawn to the creaion of Special Economic Zones in border provinces such as Koh Kong and Svay Rieng. In these areas, factories vary in size and operaions, ranging from export licensed factories with up to 8,000 workers to small, unmarked factories employing fewer than 100 workers. These smaller factories largely ill subcontracts for larger suppliers. Outsourcing of producion to smaller factories may be either authorized or unauthorized by apparel brands (Kashyap 2015). H&M in Cambodia According to the most recent H&M Supplier List, H&M purchases apparel from 51 garment supplier factories located primarily in Phnom Penh, Kandal Province and Kampong Speu Province. As of May 2018, H&M has sourced garments from at least 7 conirmed Cambodian factories this year, located primarily in Phnom Penh and Kandal Provinces. This igure does not account for factories that receive subcontracts from Tier 1 H&M supplier factories. Accordingly, there is a broad consensus among labour experts interviewed for this study that H&M most likely produces garments in many more factories than the 7 factories conirmed by CENTRAL researchers. Based upon analysis of 2018 shipping data, more than 291,000 kilograms of goods were exported from Cambodian supplier factories to H&M up unil May 2018. Export data and ield research suggests that in 2018, H&M producion in Cambodia has consisted primarily of women and infants’ clothing produced from inexpensive fabrics including cotons and syntheic texiles. Other items produced by H&M in Cambodia include men’s shorts and boys’ sweaters. India Since the adopion of liberalized economic policies during the economic reforms of 1991, the Indian export garment industry has emerged as one of the leading industrial segments in the Indian economy. Export earnings of the apparel industry alone were valued at USD 15.7 billon in 2014 and combined texile and apparel export earnings were valued at USD 40 billion. In 2013, texiles and clothing contributed 4% to the gross domesic product. In 2014, the Indian texile and garment industry employed 45 million workers. Despite the signiicant segment of Indian workers employed in the garment industry, naional level data on economic and social proile of the garment workforce remain alarmingly thin (Kane 2015). A majority of workers are migrants who migrate to the industrial clusters from Andhra Pradesh, Bihar, Jharkhand, Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu, Utar Pradesh and West Bengal (ICN 2016). For instance, up to 80% of garment workers in Bangalore are believed to be migrant workers (Bain 2016). Despite the staggering presence of low wage migrant workers in the unorganized sector and their signiicant economic contribuions, there are large gaps in government and civil society services to protect their rights. For instance, India’s Inter-State Migrant Workmen Act, 1979, aims to regulate working condiions but is inadequate and unimplemented, with no gender perspecive (Roy 2015). Modernizaion of the Indian texile industry has been pursued vigorously since the mid-1980s with the eliminaion of the licensing regime, quotas, and quanitaive restricions in an atempt to atract state-of-the-art machinery and technology, know-how and skill sets from abroad. The massive drive towards modernizing the texile industry has gone hand-in-hand with irms resoring to widespread informalizaion of the workforce. Within the texile industry, this trend has been most apparent in the ready-made garment industry, which has become a leading outsourcing desinaion for TNCs over the past two decades (Sridhar 2014). 39 40 CONTENTS CONTENTS Uttar Pradesh Jharkhand Madhya Pradesh Bihar Export data and ield research suggests that in 2018, H&M producion in India has consisted primarily of women and infants’ clothing produced from inexpensive fabrics including cotons and syntheic texiles. Other items produced by H&M in India include men’s t-shirts and pants. West Bengal employment in Indonesia’s manufacturing sectors combined (Okezone July 2017). More than 170 foreign brands and companies are acive in Indonesia’s garment industry. In 2017, Indonesia accounted for 1.8% of the world market for garment export, placing Indonesia among the top ten garment supplier companies globally (Sindo 2017). Centeral & 45% Eastern Java 55% Western Java Maharashtra Indonesia Andhra Pradesh Karnataka Tamil Nadu Figure 4: Garment producion hubs in India Encompassing producion of fabric, apparel and leather goods, the Indonesian texile and texile products (TTP) industry accounted for 6.65% of naional GDP, with 5.2-5.4% growth in 2017 alone (Okezone September 2017). The third largest industry in Indonesia, TTP employed 2.69 million workers in 2016—17.03 percent of the total Approximately 60% of garment workers in India are women, although workplace demographics shit depending upon the region (Kane 2015). H&M in India According to the most recent H&M Supplier List, H&M purchases apparel from 235 garment supplier factories located in India. 90% of garment producion is concentrated on Java Island, with 55% in the western end of Java Island. Central and eastern Java, however, are increasingly signiicant producion hubs. The Ministry of Industry plans greater onshore coton warehouses and is promoing the Central Java province as a new texile hub, with a dedicated industrial estate planned on its northern coast. In order to promote the industry, the Economic Ministry is overseeing policy changes to promote special economic zones, new tax holidays, lower nighime electricity costs, and incenives to buy new machinery (GBG 2016). As of May 2018, H&M has sourced garments from at least 53 conirmed Indian factories this year. This igure does not account for factories that receive subcontracts from Tier 1 H&M supplier factories. Accordingly, there is a broad consensus among labour experts interviewed for this study that H&M most likely produces garments in many more factories than the 53 factories conirmed by AFWA researchers. Based upon analysis of 2018 shipping data, more than 1.6 million kilograms of goods were exported from Indian supplier factories to H&M up unil May 2018. Indonesia’s garment industry exempliies regional integraion. Indonesia sources coton, exports yarn, imports fabrics, and exports garments. Indonesia is ranked 9th for global coton consumpion but produces less than 2% of the domesic coton demand. This deicit is illed through raw coton imports from Brazil, the US, and Australia that is then spun in Indonesia and either exported as yarn or further processed into cloth and garments (GBG 2016). The principle buyers of yarn from Indonesia are China and Japan. Indonesia sources the majority of fabric used in garment producion from China and South Korea (CCC 2015a). This integrated texile manufacturing base is a draw for brands and investors (GBG 2016). Copyright 2018 Natalie Leifer for Asia Floor Wage Alliance Java Island Figure 5: Garment producion hubs in Indonesia According to the Beter Work Indonesia Report, 2017, garment, texile and footwear industries have very low levels of compliance with ILO core convenions and naional laws. Beter Work Indonesia also reports an industry-wide low level of compliance with laws governing overime pay, provision of social security beneits, and shortterm contractual employment relaionships. In the 2017 report, Beter Work Indonesia reported a non-compliance rate of 64% with regard to correct payment of overime wages and 67% noncompliance with payment of social security and other beneits. 68% of employment contracts also failed to comply with the law (BWI 2017). H&M in Indonesia According to the most recent H&M Supplier List, H&M purchases apparel from 83 apparel supplier factories in Indonesia. According to 2018 shipping data, as of May 2018, H&M had sourced garments from at least 4 41 42 CONTENTS conirmed Indonesian factories this year, located primarily in Jakarta and Central and Western Java. These igures do not, however, account for the 44 shipments found from Indonesia to H&M in the USA which could not be traced to speciic Indonesian factories due to the use of third party shipping companies, or factories that receive subcontracts from Tier 1 H&M Inc. supplier factories. Accordingly, there is a broad consensus among labour experts interviewed for this study that H&M most likely produces garments in many more factories than the 4 factories conirmed by researchers. CONTENTS H&M in Sri Lanka According to the most recent H&M Supplier List, H&M purchases apparel from 24 garment supplier factories in Sri Lanka, located primarily in Ratnapura, Galle, Colombo and the wider Western Province. Gampaha Based upon analysis of 2018 shipping data, H&M shipments from Sri Lanka to the US and Canada totaled just under 30,000 kilograms for the period January – May 2018. Export data and ield research suggests that in 2018, H&M producion in Sri Lanka has consisted primarily of women’s swimwear and underwear. Due to the usage of third party shipping companies, it is impossible to track 2018 acive Sri Lankan suppliers to H&M in the USA. Kalutara These four factories, up to May 2018, have exported 612,476 kilograms of goods to H&M this year. Taken together with the weight of shipments which could not be tracked to individual Indonesian factories, there have been 1,313,140 kilograms of goods exported from Indonesia to H&M in the USA. Export data and ield research suggests that in 2018, H&M producion in Indonesia has consisted primarily of men’s shorts and sweaters, as well as girls and women’s jackets and shirts. Other items produced by H&M in Indonesia include women’s underwear and socks, as well as swimwear and dresses. Sri Lanka Enirely privately owned, Sri Lanka’s garment export industry is a signiicant contributor to global garment producion networks. Clothing exports from Sri Lanka iniially increased ater the liberalizaion of the Sri Lankan economy in 1977 and the terminaion of the Muli-Fibre Agreement in 2005 (MFA). By 2014, the garment industry contributed 7.4% of the Sri Lankan GDP. In 2017 the manufacturing industry accounted for Based upon AFW analysis of 2018 shipping data, more than 291,000 kilograms of goods were exported from Cambodian supplier factories to H&M between January and May 2018. Figure 6: Garment producion hubs in Sri Lanka 15.7% of Sri Lanka’s GDP, with apparel and texiles exports growing by 4.7 and 2.3% respecively to a value of just over USD $3 billion (Central Bank of Sri Lanka 2018). Over 19% of Sri Lanka’s populaion are employed in manufacturing (Central Bank of Sri Lanka 2018). Sri Lanka’s garment industry largely employs young, unskilled workers who migrate from rural areas to Sri Lanka’s export processing or free trade zones. Women are signiicantly overrepresented in the Sri Lankan garment industry, with 85% of workers being women, compared to a share of 35% in the overall naional labour force as of 2015 (Madurawala 2017). A large proporion are also internal migrants with signiicant numbers migraing from rural communiies to work in factories in Gampaha, and Kalutara regions that account for 90% of Sri Lanka’s total garment exports. 43 44 CONTENTS CONTENTS CHAPTER 3: H&M Corporate Social Responsibility Brand and retail Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) codes of conduct establishing social and environmental principles have developed in response to labor, ani-sweatshop, and consumerdriven accountability movements in Europe and the United States (Barria 2014). H&M’s CSR commitments are set out in the H&M Group Sustainability Report 2017. The company claims to have 30 experts working in its Global Sustainability Department, with another 150 working speciically in sustainability across 20 producion markets. H&M’s CSR measures may look good on paper, but as detailed in Chapters 4 and 5 of this report, they are far from suicient to address workplace harassment, violence, and violaions of decent work standards. Moreover, research shows CSR alone is an insuicient approach because it does not address power imbalances and fear of retaliaion among workers who are criical to monitoring and reporing incidents of gender based violence and ulimately transforming workplace pracices and culture (Finnegan 2014). As this report also shows, H&M and other brands must also address structural pressures including price-points and contract imelines to remove the pressures that incenivize discriminatory and coercive workplace pracices at the factory level. Like other CSR iniiaives, H&M CSR not only falls far short of social dialogue and freedom of associaion required by decent work standards, but is also enirely self-monitored. Research demonstrates that such self-monitored CSR commitments fail to either address risk factors for violence or provide avenues for relief in cases of workplace violence (Finnegan 2014). Copyright 2018 Natalie Leifer for Asia Floor Wage Furthermore, while H&M standards for sustainability iniially encompassed fair labour pracices and environmental safety, recent interviews, reports and company press releases emphasize environmental protecion over worker protecion. Progress on implemening living wages remains miniscule while H&M focuses on renewable energy strategies. This approach marks a shit in the H&M Sustainability Commitment towards environmental sustainability and away from implemening living wages and ensuring safe working environments. Ulimately, transformaive environmental shits also require living wages and decent work. H&M environmental commitments should extend to invesing in sustainable living environments for low wage workers that produce garments for H&M in urban industrial producion hubs. Public Disclosure H&M is one of several brands to publicly disclose its supplier list. As many labor and human rights acivists have recognized, supplier disclosure is an important irst step in transparency and accountability for labor rights abuses. As explained by the Internaional Corporate Accountability Round Table (ICAR), opaque supply chains, unequal distribuion of risk and proit throughout the supply chain, brand purchasing pracices, and the failure of home governments to require brand accountability leave workers vulnerable to a range of abuses, including violence and harassment. While trying to idenify shipments to H&M, their volume, and corresponding supplier factories in Bangladesh, India, Indonesia, and Sri Lanka, however, researchers ideniied shipments to H&M that could not be traced to disclosed supplier factories. Shipments to H&M also included third party shipping companies and factories that receive contracts from Tier 1 H&M supplier factories. 45 46 CONTENTS CONTENTS Standards for suppliers Wage standards H&M supplier standards are explicitly limited to addressing Tier 1 companies and formal subcontractors. As set out by H&M CSR Code of Conduct for suppliers, the CSR code of conduct applies to direct operaions and subcontractors of Business Partners which have a contractual business relaion with H&M. In 2013, H&M released its roadmap towards a fair living wage which ariculated a powerful narraive about fairness and respect. Atracing broad publicity, H&M commited to ensure that a fair living wage is possible for workers in their supply chain, and it explicitly referred to 850,000 texile workers who could expect a fair living wage by 2018. H&M explains their vision of a fair living wage in the following terms: Put another way, H&M acknowledges that they may have non-direct “business partners” in the supply chain, but does not commit to ensuring that these partners uphold standards for suppliers. Instead, according to H&M: It is the responsibility of H&M’s suppliers and other business partners to inform their subcontractors about H&M’s Code of Conduct and Policy for Homework, and to ensure that these are implemented in every factory and workplace that produces, inishes packs or otherwise handles goods or performs services for H&M. It has always been our vision that all texile workers should be able to live on their wage. We are focusing on our strategic suppliers to start with. Our goal is that all of them should have improved pay structures for fair living wages in place by 2018. (H&M 2016a) The strategic suppliers referenced by H&M produced 60% of H&Ms product volume at the ime the original living wage commitment was made. The term “fair living wage” promised by H&M in 2013 references and combines two disinct wage standards: a living wage standard and a fair wage standard. A living wage is protected under Aricle 23.3 of the Universal Declaraion of Human Rights and deined as a wage on which a worker and her family can live with dignity. Accordingly, Tier 1 disclosure is only the first step toward transparent supply chains since H&M garments and apparel continue to be manufactured by third-party subcontractors that are not included in H&M supplier lists. These practices undermine supply chain transparency, obscure critical information, and create obstacles to external monitoring and review. H&M supplier standards are explicitly limited to addressing Tier 1 companies and formal subcontractors. Put another way, H&M acknowledges that they may have non-direct “business partners” in the supply chain, but does not commit to ensuring that these partners uphold standards for suppliers While the term living wage refers to the amount that allows a family to live with dignity, the term fair wage refers to wage system within a factory. As deined by the Fair Wage Network, fair wages entail three condiions: (1) compliance with naional wage regulaions, including minimum wage standards, regular payment, overime payments, provision of paid holidays and social insurance; (2) proper wage structures within a company, including appropriate wages for skill level and individual and collecive performance; and removal of gender pay gaps; and (3) structures that facilitate collecive bargaining (McMullen 2016; FWN 2016). With a name that integrates these standards— without, however, referencing the fair wage paradigm—H&M used the following deiniion of a fair living wage: A fair living wage should at the very least cover the worker and their family’s basic needs and a discreionary income. This wage should be reviewed annually and negoiated with democraically elected trade unions. (H&M 2016a) However, as detailed by a May 7, 2018 press release from the Clean Clothes Campaign: Back in 2013 H&M announced that 850,000 workers would be paid a fair living wage 47 48 CONTENTS CONTENTS As part of its “Turn Around H&M” Bangladeshi garment workers. The workers pictured are not from factories interviewed for this report. By Solidarity Center licensed under CC 2.0 by 2018. Instead of that materializing on workers’ pay slips, however, the goal itself has disappeared from H&M’s corporate communicaion, just as the original documents have disappeared from the brand’s website. H&M corporate communicaion now refers only to the introducion of the Fair Wage Method by supplier factories. The 850,000 workers and their actual incomes are no longer a part of the picture. H&M has now shited their focus to marking the diference between the minimum wage – which is nowhere near any credible living wage benchmark – and the higher average wage at H&M supplier factories. According to the Clean Clothes Campaign, there is no informaion on whether those wages include various bonuses, but research conducted at H&M’s suppliers in Cambodia in 2016 revealed that almost all compensaion beyond the minimum wage is related to condiions such as working overime on Sundays and public holidays (CCC 2018). Anannya Bhatacharjee of Asia Floor Wage Alliance (AFWA), warned against taking H&M’s wage igures for granted: Based on my contacts with workers, I think that H&M’s igures are inlated and misrepresented. They likely include payments that should not be a part of the wage calculaion. Bhatacharjee also pointed out that AFWA unions approached H&M in 2016: “The idea was to meet and negoiate an arrangement for progressive payment of a living wage. Instead of acing on that iniiaive, H&M opted for hiding behind nontransparent experiments of their own.” (CCC 2018) campaign, the Clean Clothes Campaign H&M’s Sustainability Commitment requires suppliers to pay wages and beneits that meet at least the minimum provided in naional laws or collecive bargaining agreements. Whilst the Sustainability Commitment states that a fair living wage “should” always be enough to meet the basic needs of workers along with some discreionary income, there is no requirement for suppliers to pay such a living wage. (CCC)— a global network dedicated The May 7, 2018 press release from Clean Clothes Campaign explains that even if the igures published by H&M are taken as a reference point, it is clear that workers’ earnings are a fracion of what would consitute a living wage: to pay living wages and guarantee fair In Cambodia, for instance, workers are paid on average 199 USD according to H&M, and that is above the naional minimum wage. However, a living wage according to the AFWA benchmark would be 475 USD. In Indonesia H&M reports the average wage of 177 USD, while AFWA living wage esimate is 422 USD. In Bangladesh, H&M’s reported igure is 95 USD, but a living wage would be nearly ive imes as high (448 USD). In Bangalore, India’s garment industry hub, workers reportedly take home 133 USD per month, while AFWA esimate of a living wage is 335 USD. to improving working conditions in the garment industry —is currently circulating a petition demanding that H&M remains true to its commitment employment conditions throughout its global supply chain. According to the Clean Clothes Campaign, “hundreds of thousands of workers behind H&M’s products are still earning poverty wages and working in poor conditions.” The ‘living wage’ demand seeks to ensure Freedom of association The H&M Sustainability Commitment establishes that all employees have the right to form or join associaions of their own choosing and to bargain collecively. Accordingly, the H&M CSR Code of Conduct for suppliers, secion 4.1.4, indicates that H&M does not accept disciplinary or discriminatory acions from employers against employees who choose to peacefully and lawfully organize or join an associaion. that wages earned in no more than 48 hours per week allow garment workers to afford food for herself and her family, pay rent, healthcare, clothing, transportation and education expenses and allow for a small amount of savings. 49 50 CONTENTS As detailed in Chapter 5 of this report, H&M supplier factories blatantly violate these standards. Grievance channels H&M’s Sustainability Commitment requires suppliers to ensure that workers have means to report grievances in a manner which also provides protecion against retaliaion for reporing. As explained in Chapter 5 of this report, however, despite these requirements, workers from H&M supplier factories reported that in pracice there are no good ways for them to report violence and seek relief and there are serious restricions on freedom of associaion. Audit process H&M proports to assess supplier compliance with the Sustainability Commitment through its Sustainable Impact Partnership Programme (SIPP) (H&M Sustainability Report 2017). SIPP has ive components: • Minimum Requirements, • Self-Reporing, • Validaion, • Capacity Building, and • Case Handling. Before entering into a working relaionship with a supplier, H&M claims to conduct a ‘minimum requirement assessment’. Ater this iniial assessment, however, H&M reports that further monitoring takes place through supplier self-assessment. H&M proports to require suppliers to self-assess their sustainability performance annually. Self-reports CONTENTS are then scored by H&M, using a Sustainability Index score from zero-100 that relects both H&M criteria and the Higg Index—an assessment mechanism that aims to assist brands in measuring environmental impacts of their supply chain (H&M Sustainability Report 2017, p. 83). In Kapashera, Gurugram (Gurgaon), India, Migrant workers and their families live packed, side by side, in single rooms, under the strict control of unregulated landlords. In this workers housing unit, more than 70 families share 8 toilets. Lacking sanitaion and waste disposal, human waste and garbage collect in an open stream less than 10 meters away from workers’ homes. Transformaive environmental shits also require living wages, decent work, and sustainable living environments for low wage workers that produce garments for H&M in urban industrial hubs. According to the H&M CSR Code of Conduct for suppliers, Secion 8.4 on Correcive Acion, H&M’s role in remediaing violaions of its Sustainability Commitment is extremely limited. If H&M conirms a case of non-compliance with minimum requirements by a supplier, H&M will send a leter of concern and require a correcive acion plan from the supplier. At best, H&M will provide capacity building support to the supplier factory to guide implementaion of the correcive acion plan. H&M does not work directly with suppliers to remediate violaions. This approach violates the principles of due diligence ariculated in the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights establishing that the responsibility to respect human rights requires business enterprises to: • Avoid causing or contribuing to adverse human rights impacts through their own aciviies, and address such impacts when they occur; • Seek to prevent or miigate adverse human rights impacts that are directly linked to their operaions, products or services by their business relaionships, even if they have not contributed to those impacts (Aricle 13). In order to meet even internaional due diligence standards, H&M must take an acive role in addressing violaions of decent work in their supply chains. Rajan Zaveri for Society for Labour and Development 2016 51 52 CONTENTS CONTENTS CHAPTER 4: Spectrum of gender based violence in H&M garment supply chains Table 1: Spectrum of gender based violence in H&M garment supply chains Gendered aspects of violence, including: 1. Violence against a woman because she is a woman 2. Violence directed against a woman that afects women disproporionately due to (a) high concentraion of women workers in risky producion departments; and (b) gendered barriers to seeking relief Forms of violence Acts that inlict physical harm • • • • • • Acts that inlict mental harm • • • • Acts that inlict sexual harm or sufering (including sexual harassment, abuse, assault, and rape) Coercion, threats, and retaliaion • • • • • • • Deprivaions of liberty • • • • Assault, including pushing to the loor, beaing and kicking, gendered aspects (1), 2(b) Slapping, gendered aspects 2(a) and (b) Pushing, gendered aspects 2(a) and (b) Throwing heavy bundles of papers and clothes, gendered aspects 2(a) and (b) Overwork with low wages, resuling in faining due to calorie deicit, high heat, and poor air circulaion, gendered aspect 2(a) Long hours performing repeiive manual tasks lead to chronic health issues, gendered aspect 2(a) General verbal abuse, including bullying and verbal public humiliaion, gendered aspect 2(a) Verbal abuse linked to gender and sexuality, gendered aspect (1) Verbal abuse linked to caste or social group, gendered aspect 2(a) and (b) Verbal abuse targeing senior women workers so that they voluntary resign prior to receiving beneits associated with seniority, gendered aspect 2(a) Sexual advances from management and mechanics and retaliaion for reporing, gendered aspect (1), 2(a) Sexual harassment from management and co-workers, gendered aspect (1) Unwanted physical touch, including inappropriate touching, pulling hair, and bodily contact by managers and male co-workers, gendered aspect (1) Rape outside the factory at accommodaion, gendered aspect (1) Threats of retaliaion for refusing sexual advances, gendered aspects 1, 2(a) and (b) Retaliaion for reporing gendered violence and harassment, gendered aspects 1, 2(a) and (b) Blacklising workers who report workplace violence, harassment, and other rights violaions, gendered aspect 2(a) Forced to work during legally mandated lunch hours, gendered aspect 2(a) Prevented from taking bathroom breaks, gendered aspect 2(a) Forced overime, gendered aspect 2(a) Prevented from using legally mandated leave enitlements, gendered aspect 2(a) This secion provides examples and cases of the spectrum of violence reported by women garment workers in H&M supply chains in Bangladesh, Cambodia, India, Indonesia, and Sri Lanka. Consistent with the internaional legal standards discussed in Part 1, these qualitaive accounts include: • forms of violence that are gendered because women workers are singled out for violence and harassment; and • forms of violence that disproporionately impact women workers because they not only comprise the majority of workers in garment producion factories, but are also underrepresented among supervisors and managers and disproporionately concentrated in subordinate operator roles. Violence against a woman because she is a woman Women workers reported being targets of explicitly gendered violence, including verbal abuse linked to gender and sexuality, sexual harassment, and threats of retaliaion for refusing sexual advances. Women from H&M supplier factories who engaged in this study named male branch managers, mechanics, supervisors, and co-workers as perpetrators of violence and harassment. Women workers also, however, reported being targets of violence because they are less likely to stand up for themselves than male co-workers. A woman worker employed in an H&M supplier factory in Gurugram (Gurgaon), India: Our slightest mistake becomes a reason to be ired from work. All we have to do is to work with our eyes and ears closed in the factory. They can’t do the same thing to a man. The manager, supervisor, loor-in-charge, master— if they go ater a man, they fear being beaten by them ater work. Not all women workers, however, reported submiing to abuse for fear of retaliaion. Women workers who are members of trade unions or workers collecives both had a strong understanding of their rights and reported resising workplace violence and harassment. Violence that disproportionately impacts women Women are disproporionately impacted by paterns of violence in garment supply chains because they make up the vast majority of garment workers. In Bangladesh, Cambodia, India, Indonesia, and Sri Lanka, women workers represent the vast majority of the overall garment workforce: • • • • • Bangladesh: Women comprise 80% of the garment workforce (World Bank 2018). Cambodia: Women between the ages of 18 and 35 dominate the Cambodian garment producion sector, comprising an esimated 90-95% of the industry’s esimated 700,000 workers (Barria 2014; Kashyap 2015). India: 60-75% of garment workers in India are women (Kane 2015; Mohan 2017). Indonesia: An esimated 80% of workers in garment and texile producion are women (Oktaviani 2017). Sri Lanka: 85% of garment workers are women, compared to a share of 35% in the overall naional labour force as of 2015 (Madurawala 2017). 53 54 CONTENTS CONTENTS Figure 7 a: Gendered producion roles in H&M supplier factories in Bangladesh, Cambodia, and India Note: This model was developed based upon detailed factory proiles in Bangladesh, Cambodia, and India Factories and number of workers by department Department Fabric Store Cuing Fusing/ pasing Bangladesh Factory 1 Bangladesh Factory 2 Bangladesh Factory 3 Cambodia Factory 2 Cambodia Factory 4 India Factory 1 Producion Finishing/packing 25 workers 82 workers 26 workers 2520 workers 19 workers 10 workers 146 workers 37 workers 4050 workers 38 workers 9 workers 105 workers 18 workers 5,050 workers total, exact distribuion by department unavailable (Source: Garment Manufacturers Associaion of Cambodia) 156 workers total, exact distribuion by department unavailable (Source: Garment Manufacturers Associaion of Cambodia) 6 workers 50 workers 14 workers These numbers, moreover, do not include women engaged in seasonal, home-based garment work (Finster 2015; Kashyap 2015). In Bangladesh, Cambodia, India, Indonesia, and Sri Lanka, the garment industry has been a major source of employment for young women from rural areas who migrate for employment to garment producion hubs. Despite their numerical majority within the garment sector, women workers remain within low skill level employment and rarely reach leadership posiions in their factories and unions. Detailed factory proiles reveal that at the factory 2025 workers Gendered hiring by department, range across factories Department Fabric Store Cuing Fusing/ pasing Management Manager male In-charge male level, women workers are concentrated in the producion department, in subordinate roles as machine operator, checkers, and helpers in producion departments. Departments, largely segregated by gender, are also spaially separate, creaing muliple and diferent working environments within the same factory. Women workers from an H&M supplier factory in Indonesia described gendered segregaion by department: Finishing/packing Supervisor male Supervisor 80-100% male 0-20% female Quality Control 20-100% male 0-80% female Line In-Charge 70-100% male 0-30% female Group leaders (lower level managers in Cambodia) 0-30% male 70-100% female Supervisor 90-100% male 0-10% female Quality Control Male Fusing machine Operator 20-100% male 0-80% female Record Keeper 20-100% male 0-80% female Quality Control 60-100% male 0-40% female Supervisor male 191 workers Researchers from CENTRAL in Cambodia reported being unable to get clear informaion on the number of workers in each department. Workers reported being regularly moved between departments and hired and ired from roles with signiicant frequency that they did not have a grasp of the structure of their workplace. They did, however, provide insight into the gendered distribuion by department as reported below. 445 workers 59 workers Supervisor male Producion Specialized roles Store Keeper male Sicker Master 40%-80% male 20-60% female Cuing Machine male Layer Man male Checkers Checker 30-100% male 0-70% female Checker 70-100% male 0-30% female Machine operators Buton Machine 40-100% male 0-60% female Line Tailor 70-90% female 10-30% male Helpers Helper 70-100% male 0-30% female Helper Helper Helper 20-70% 0-20% male 0-30% male male 80-100% female 70-100% female 30%-80% female Figure 7 b: Gendered producion roles in H&M supplier factories in Bangladesh, Cambodia, and India Note: This model was developed based upon detailed factory proiles in Bangladesh, Cambodia, and India 55 56 CONTENTS The irst loor is for producion and warehouse. Producion workers mostly are women. A producion line consists of 38 workers. Supervisors are men and women. Warehouse for inal products are mostly men and warehouse for accessories are mostly women. Second loor is for cuing. The cuing unit has mix workers men and women. Supervisors are men and women. Women workers in an H&M supplier factory in Gurugram (Gurgaon), India described women workers being further separated by age: As we enter the factory, we are asked to form two separate lines: one of young girls and another of elder women. They keep us segregated. Young girls work on a diferent loor than the older ladies. So, in the end, we have no idea how they behave with these young women workers. Women workers who face heightened risk of violence Daily-wage contract workers Women workers employed in H&M producion factories in Sri Lanka report that workers hired through “manpower”—or temporary work agencies—are paricularly vulnerable to abuse. Sri Lankan trade union leaders reported that since women employed through manpower agencies face rouine sexual advances from supervisors who making hiring coningent upon receiving their sexual advances. In Sri Lanka, a signiicant percentage of women workers employed in H&M supplier factories are employed through “manpower”—or CONTENTS temporary work agencies—as needed. Under this arrangement, the number of workers employed in the factory can difer signiicantly depending upon the orders that have been received for the day. Accordingly, even trade union leaders’ familiar with the H&M supplier factories under invesigaion were unable to provide accurate counts of the number of workers in each department. When Asia Floor Wage Alliance researchers approached the district labor department, the commissioner refused to provide informaion without a formal leter of request. Migrant women In Cambodia, all of the women workers interviewed for this study migrated to Phnom Penh or neighbouring Kandal Province for work. Workers at Roo Hsing reported migraing to these garment producion hubs due to lack of opportunity in their home provinces, family debt, and inability to sustain themselves and their families through farming. These women migrant workers reported feeling that they had less power in the workplace due both to their status as migrants and their status as women. Single women Sri Lankan women also ideniied young, unmarried girls as paricularly vulnerable to sexual harassment: Young unmarried girls are targeted for sexual harassment because they are single. Male co-workers ask young women for their phone numbers. They call late at night. Most single women face harassment in the factory. In Bangladesh and India, women workers in the H&M supply chain reported that elder women and widowed women are targeted or face heightened levels of violence. One woman who worked in an H&M supplier factory in Bangalore recounted being abused both for being a widow, and for being elder: My supervisor came to my workspace at 5:30 pm. He told me to get up from the chair and not to come to work from the next day onwards. “Go and die at home,” he shouted. Another staf member joined in and asked, “Why do you come to work if you are so old?” Women from socially marginalized communities Within India, low income women from marginalized communiies travel to urban industrial hubs in search of employment in garment factories. These migrant women include a large proporion of Scheduled Caste, Scheduled Tribe, and Muslim women. Due to entrenched structures of discriminaion, their intersecing status as migrants, women, and members of marginalized communiies both increases risk of exploitaion and exclusion from decent work, and undermines the ability to seek accountability through formal legal channels. Acts that inflict sexual harm or suffering During interviews and focus group discussions, researchers ideniied cases of sexual violence, including a rape case. We did not cover these cases in detail due to concerns by women workers and trade unions that reporing extreme cases of sexual violence could elicit sigma and workplace retaliaion. Sexual advances from management and retaliation for reporting In Bangladesh, women employed in H&M supplier factories reported that it is common for supervisors and managers to pursue sexual relaionships with women workers by ofering beneits including salary increases, promoions, and beter posiions. Women who refuse these ofers face retaliaion, including being ired from the workplace. These cases provide insight into relaionships of power in the workplace that expose women workers to violence and harassment. Piya In May 2017, 25-year-old Piya took a job as a sewing machine operator in an H&M garment supplier factory in Dhaka, Bangladesh. Piya described noicing early on that a female coworker, Apa, received special treatment: “Unlike the rest of us, she had lexible work hours, she was allowed to take leave.” Three months ater she began working at the supplier factory, Apa approached Piya on behalf of the manager charged with sample garment producion: Apa leaned over my machine table and said, “Hey, you are a lucky one. The Sample Manager likes you and wants to go out with you. You will get a promoion if you go out with him. In the weeks that followed, Piya refused repeated requests for dates from the Sample Manager. When the harassment did not stop, Piya reported the issue to human resources at the factory. Human resources did not take any acion and the harassment persisted: “He kept asking me out. He would insist. This went on for months.” 57 58 CONTENTS In October 2017, Piya went to the Ashulia Police Staion to report the harassment she faced and seek relief. Piya described her experience with the police: The police refused to ile my case. They told me, “It is only a proposal.” When I returned to work the next day, I was ired from my job. I learned later that the police had informed the Sample Manager that I went to ile a case. This example shows how women in Piya’s posiion have no avenue for relief from ongoing sexual harassment at work. When Piya refused to go out with the Sample Manager outside of working hours, she was ired in retaliaion. Neither factory human resources nor the police provided viable pathways to accountability. Sulatana Women employed in lower management posiions also reported sexual harassment and retaliaion for reporing sexual harassment. For instance, In January 2018, Sulatana, a skilled garment worker with 10 years of experience, was hired as a producion-line manager by an H&M supplier located in Dhaka, Bangladesh. Her posiion as a woman producion-line manager is highly unusual since the majority of women workers in Bangladesh are employed in subordinate roles as machine operators, helpers, and checkers. In the weeks that followed, the General Manager of the factory made frequent advances. Sulatana recounted: He lirted with me, he would touch me on the shoulder or touch me on the head. I tried to ignore him. I thought if I showed no interest, he would stop. It didn’t work. On April 11, three days before Bengali New Year, the General Manager called me to his oice and CONTENTS asked me to go out with him on the holiday. I gently refused. The next day, the Producion Manager approached me and asked, “What is wrong with you? Why don’t you spend some ime with the boss?” I refused again and explained that I was spending the holiday with my ive-year old son. On April 17, 2018, the irst working day ater the three-day New Year holiday, the Producion Manager approached Sulatana again: He pressured me to agree to the General Manager’s proposal. He ofered me a salary increase and a promoion if I agreed. When I did not, he threatened to ire me. I was anxious and afraid. I skipped work the next day. exposed to violence. Notably, Sulatana is a highly skilled garment worker who was employed in a management posiion at an H&M supplier factory. Unlike Sulatana, the majority of women garment workers at the base of H&M garment supply chains are concentrated in short term, low skill, and low-wage posiions, increasing their risk of gender based violence at work. Women workers employed in an H&M supplier factory in Gurugram (Gurgaon) described being moved around from line-to-line depending upon the desires of male supervisors. One woman explained: If the supervisor liked a paricular girl who is working under another supervisor—and if he has some inluence over loor in-charge—then he will ask the loor in-charge to shit that girl under his supervision. If she refuses she will be ired. They will blame her for being unable to achieve her targets. Women workers has no say in these arrangements. Women workers at this H&M supplier factory explained that managers, supervisors-in-charge, loor-in-charge, and “masters” within a factory are oten relaives. This interconnected web of male supervision further undermines avenues for relief for women who are targets of sexual advances. In Tiruppur, India, women workers at an H&M supplier factory reported that supervisors may use their control over working hours to make sexual advances ater long night shits. One woman explained: On April 19, Sulatana went to the Ashulia police staion to ile a complaint. The police refused to receive the complaint on the grounds that Sulatana had no authenic proof. A few days later, on April 22, the General Manager called her to his oice and asked her to resign immediately. When Sulatana approached Human Resources, she was informed that the General Manager’s decision was inal. Sulatana had no avenue for relief from ongoing sexual harassment at work. When Sulatana refused to spend ime with the General Manager outside of working hours, she was ired in retaliaion. Neither factory human resources nor the police provided viable pathways to accountability. At the ime of interview, nearly three weeks later, Sulatana was sill searching for a new job. Sulatana’s experience of workplace violence provides insight into the risk factors that leave women workers in H&M garment supply chains Garment workers in a Bangladesh garment factory. Workers pictured were not interviewed for this report. By Tareq Salahuddin licensed by CC 2.0 59 60 CONTENTS It is like a trap. If a supervisor is interested in a woman, he can make her work the half-night shit which gets over at midnight. Then, he may ofer to drop her home on his bike. She may not have any other opion to reach home at that ime of night. In this situaion, it is easy for the supervisor to exploit the woman he has targeted. Like Piya and Sulatana, women workers in Tirippur reported that if they resist these advances, they will be targeted: If a woman worker does not meet the sexual desires of the supervisor, she may get more overime hours. She may not be allowed to take her break. The supervisor will start to ind fault with everything she does. She won’t be able to take leave. Women workers also described unwanted sexual advances from male workers in the factory. Manju described resigning from her job at an H&M supplier factory in Gurugram (Gurgaon), India ater learning that a co-worker was vocal about his interest in a relaionship with her due to concern that this would impact her marriage. This was the reason why let my job. One of my co-workers lived near my house. We started commuing together every day, and we became friends over our walks home together. We exchanged our mobile numbers. Then, one day one of his friends who also worked with us in the factory told me that my friend likes me and wishes to marry me. I said, “he knows I am already married. How can he even think of marrying me?” I thought, if my husband comes to know about this he will not let me work anymore. So, I decided to resign quietly without telling anyone anything. CONTENTS Forced to navigate unwanted sexual overtures at work, Manju let her job rather than face repercussions from her husband—in this case, she feared not being allowed to work outside the home. In deeply patriarchal socieies, sexual advances in the workplace may have signiicant consequences for women beyond the impact of violence, including social sigma and restricions on their mobility dictated by the men in their families. These consequences also undermine reporing. Manju explained: I have not told this to anyone, but today I am sharing it with you. I did not report in the factory because it is the woman who is blamed, ulimately. No one sees the man as at fault. Rumors spread, they share between male colleagues. This is very common where I worked. Unwanted physical touch Forms of sexual harassment documented in the H&M supply chain include inappropriate touching, pinching, pulling hair, and bodily contact iniiated by both managers and male co-workers. In Sri Lanka, women working in an H&M supplier factory in Vavuniya District, North Province, reported that they are at risk of sexual harassment from male mechanics tasked with ixing their machines. One woman recounted: When girls scold machine operators for touching them or grabbing them, they take revenge. Someimes they give them machines that do not funcion properly. Then, they do not come and repair it for a long ime. Ater that, supervisors scold us for not meeing the target. Sri Lankan women from this factory reported that they are most frequently harassed in the hallway on the way to the bathroom. Workers at Yi Da Manufacturer reported sexual harassment from male staf. One worker reported having her “sensiive areas touched without my consent”. Women workers employed in an H&M supplier factory in Cakung, North Jakarta, also described unequal relaionships of power between women machine operators in the producion departments and the mechanics they rely upon to meet their producion targets: Male mechanics require a “tribute” payment in order to ensure that they immediately ix your broken sewing machine. If they are late in ixing the machine, I won’t make the producion target. Women workers employed in an H&M supplier in Vavuniya District, Northern Province, Sri Lanka are paricularly vulnerable to harassment at the beginning and end of the day as they stand in line to clock-in and clock-out using biometric ingerprining machines. Girls are harassed by male workers in the factory. I have seen supervisors and mechanics pull their hair, hit their butocks, and touch their shoulders. This happens a lot when they wait in line to use inger-print machines. These women workers, are subjected to rouinized sexual harassment at the beginning and end of the day. Literally marking their passage into and out of the factory, harassment in the daily cue marks entry and exit into the factory as a site of harassment and violence. As detailed in the discussion of inefecive grievance mechanisms in Chapter 5 of this report, all paricipants stated that there were no good ways for them to report cases of violence in their workplace. Industrial discipline practices Workers from all H&M supplier factories invesigated for this report described working under harsh condiions with strict line leaders, tough supervisors and abusive management pracices. Workers reported ongoing verbal abuse and frequent threats and physical violence. Sweatshop discipline pracices correspond with paricular relaionships of authority, workforce demographics, employment relaionships, and employment condiions. Labour pracices in garment producion factories have been described as operatory labour pracices, referring to the role of workers as basic operators. Operatory labour pracices correspond with paricular working relaionships (Table 2). These labour and employment pracices among garment suppliers expose workers to risk factors for violence. These labour pracices may also correspond with the structure of the global labour market. For instance, in Cambodia, in situaions where local workers are managed by Chinese managers, women workers reported that physical and verbal abuse escalated due to frustraion communicaing across language barriers. 61 62 CONTENTS Authority Management Union presence Workforce demographics Educaion Women CONTENTS • • Hierarchical work relaions Sweat shop disciplinary pracices, including verbal, physical, and sexual harassment and abuse • Ani-union management pracices • • • Illiterate, low literacy and literate High %age of women workers Concentraion in low-skill departments and tasks Home-workers hired on piece rate • Employment condiions Wages and incenives • Overime Employment security • • Below or at minimum wage and piece-rate payment High levels of forced overime Low employment security On September 27, 2017, at 12:30 pm, my batch supervisor came up behind me as I was working on the sewing machine, yelling “you are not meeing your target producion.” He pulled me out of the chair and I fell on the loor. He hit me, including on my breasts. He pulled me up and then pushed me to the loor again. He kicked me. Radhika iled a writen complaint with Human Resources. She described the meeing between herself, the supervisor, and human resources personnel: They called the supervisor to the oice and said, “last month you did the same thing to another lady—haven’t you learned?” Then they told him to apologize to me. Ater that, they warned me not to menion this further. The supervisor and I let the meeing. I went back to work. Source: Adapted from Nathan, Saripalle and Gurunathan 2016 Table 2: Operatory labour pracices, workforce demographics, and working condiions in garment producion Physical violence Under internaional law gender based violence includes acts that inlict physical harm. While both women and men reported working in physically violent contexts, these modes of discipline are gendered because they disproporionately impact women workers based upon their concentraion in machine operator roles and as checkers and helpers in producion departments. Women are also subjected to physical harm associated with the very nature of garment work: long hours performing repeiive manual tasks in unsafe working environments for below living wages. Physical abuse Examples of physical abuse reported by workers interviewed for this study include slapping workers and throwing heavy bundles of papers and clothes at workers, especially during highstress producion imes. Workers reported that physical discipline pracices spiked ater second ier management came out of meeings with senior management driving producion targets. In India, women workers employed in an H&M supplier factory in Bangalore reported physical abuse associated with pressure to meet producion targets. Radhika described being thrown to the loor and beaten, including on her breasts: Radhika reported that the harassment from her manager did not stop, but that she coninued to work at the factory because she needs the job: “My husband passed away and I have a physically challenged daughter who cannot work. That is why I need the job. I sufer a lot to earn my livelihood.” Workers at Yi Da Manufacturer, an H&M supplier factory in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, reported sufering physical violence at the hands of Chinese managers, including having bundles of clothes thrown at them and being beaten. One worker at Yi Da Manufacturer reported that a translator slapped a female worker and later claimed he was joking. No action was taken against the perpetrator. In addiion to these more extreme forms of physical abuse, women workers also reported being handled roughly by male supervisors on a rouine basis. One woman worker from an H&M supplier factory in Gurugram (Gurgaon) described being physically pushed to work: The supervisor and master push us by our shoulder or shake it abruptly and roughly with their hand ordering us to work, if they ind us somewhere else other than our alloted workplace. Women workers also reported physical violence, including slapping and pinching, from male colleagues. At Roo Hsing, another H&M supplier in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, women reported that there was no acion taken against male workers who inlicted violence against female colleagues. Physical toll of garment work Overwork with low wages, resulting in fainting due to calorie deficit, high heat, and poor air circulation Due to exposure to high temperatures and high levels of chemical substances, exacerbated by poor venilaion systems and inadequate nutriion among workers, episodes of mass faining are a regular occurrence in Cambodian garment factories. In 2017, the Cambodian Naional Social Security Fund ideniied 1,603 cases of faining across 22 factories, including H&M suppliers. 1,599—or 98%—of these cases were women. Workers, trade unions, and their allies have long documented these severe health consequences in H&M supply chains. In 2017, four separate instances of faining due to calorie deicit, heat, 63 64 CONTENTS CONTENTS Standing and working, the whole day standing, causes leg pain. The back becomes sif. The calf and the heel pain very much. It is coninuous. On September 1, 2017, the Khmer Times reported that according to the Chom Chao commune deputy police chief, Sao Sarith, 64 workers fainted at the Berry Apparel Factory, htps://www.khmerimeskh.com/5080989/100factory-workers-faint-two-days/ On September 12, 2017, The Khmer Times reported that 28-year-old garment worker, Phon Saran, died the previous day ater faining on her way into the Star Fuyu Garment Company, htps://www.khmerimeskh.com/5082522/ garment-worker-dies-heart-atack/ and inadequate air circulaion were reported at H&M supplier factories in Cambodia. Two women workers lost their lives. enter the factory. She was sent to the hospital but died before arriving due to a heart atack. Friends of Saran stated that she always chose to save her meagre wages instead of spending them on food. Star Fuyu is listed as a supplier on H&M’s website. Neom Somol worked at Anful Garments Factory (Cambodia) Ltd in Phnom Penh. On July 6, 2017, another worker at the factory fainted. Somol atempted to help her colleague get to a medical clinic but in the process of doing so fainted herself. Her head hit a wall when she fainted and she died at the factory. Anful Garments was a supplier to H&M and at the ime and has supplied to H&M as recently as March 13 2018. At Berry Apparel (Cambodia) Co., Ltd., 150 workers fainted over two days on the 30th and 31st of August 2017. The workers fainted due to exhausion. Berry Apparel is currently listed as a supplier on H&M’s website as of May 2018 and most recently supplied to H&M on November 4, 2017. 28-year-old Phon Saran, was employed at H&M supplier factory Star Fuyu Garment Co., Ltd. in Phnom Penh. On September 12, 2017 she arrived at work and fainted ater scanning her ID card to Long hours performing repetitive manual tasks lead to chronic health issues Women are also subjected to physical harm associated with of long hours performing repeiive manual tasks in unsafe working environments. Women garment workers employed as machine operators in an H&M supplier factory in Tiruppur reported ulcers and piles from long hours siing hunched over machines. Women working as checkers in the same factory reported geing varicose veins as a result of long hours standing and checking garments. Women workers from an H&M supplier factory in Gurgaon described severe pain in their legs from standing and working, or siing and working: Working using the machine the whole day, for 12 hours, with only half-an-hour of break leaves my legs swollen. By evening it is very diicult to walk with that pain in my leg. I cannot even stand up for a while and take a walk, stretch my legs. I just have to complete my target. Across the industry, health consequences faced by women garment workers include respiratory illnesses— including silicosis from sand blasing and tuberculosis; ergonomic issues such as back pain; reproducive health issues (irregular period and excessive bleeding); and mental health problems including depression and anxiety. Extended exposure to heat, noise, dust and chemicals leads to chronic condiions among women garment workers. For instance, exposure to coton dust irritates the upper respiratory tract and bronchi. With prolonged exposure, this slowly progresses to chronic, obstrucive pulmonary disease. According to a randomised survey conducted by India’s Employees State Insurance Corporaion in 2014, 60.6% of garment workers surveyed were anemic and 80% of all tuberculosis cases registered in 2009 were from garment workers. Garment workers, largely internal migrants between the ages of 18 and 45 years with lower socioeconomic status, faced diiculies accessing medical atenion (Ceresna-Chaturvedi 2015). Verbal abuse Women workers in H&M supplier factories in Bangladesh described constant and relentless verbal abuse that coninues from the beginning to the end of their shit. Women workers employed in two H&M supplier factories in Phnom Penh, Cambodia—Roo Hsing, and Yi Da Manufacturer—all reported being yelled at and verbally abused by producion line managers on a daily basis for falling short of producion targets or making mistakes in their work. An Indonesian woman worker at an H&M producion facility described the pace of work she faced daily: I can achieve my target if I work non-stop, but it is not possible. Someimes I have to break to go to the rest room, or to drink water. If I do, I won’t meet my target. In this Indonesian H&M supplier factory, failure to meet producion targets not only provokes verbal abuse but also inimidaion and threats of iring. One woman described the daily barrage of yelling and mocking from her supervisor, driving her to meet producion targets: If you miss the target, all the workers in the producion room can hear the yelling: “You stupid! Cannot work?” “If you are not willing to work, just go home!” “Watch out, you! I will not extend your contract if you cannot work.” They also throw materials. They kick our chairs. They don’t touch us so they don’t leave a mark that could be used as evidence with the police, but it is very stressful. 65 66 CONTENTS Workers at Roo Hsing also reported being verbally abused directly by Chinese managers and forced to work harder to meet producion targets. One worker at Roo Hsing recounted: Chinese managers pressure the Cambodian team leaders to shout at the workers to make them work faster. We are called stupid and lazy. Someimes they beat workers. Verbal abuse focused on meeing producion targets was also reported by women at Yi Da Manufacturer. Women workers in H&M supplier factories in Faridabad and Gurugram, India reported that abuses range from references to women by their body type to disparaging comments about a woman’s background. One woman worker provided an example: Supervisors call women with small breasts transgender. They make comments, like “look, a man has come to work here.” Women also reported that the type of language used with them is disinct from the language used with male colleagues. One woman worker, employed in an H&M supplier factory in Gurugram explained: It’s very common for supervisors to say, “inish the target or I will . . .” —using any number of sexual connotaions. They say, “I will fuck you if you do not work on ime.” This is very common language used with women by the in-charge, manager. They cannot say this to men. This treatment is just for us. CONTENTS Coercion, threats, and retaliation Job insecurity and fear of reported workplace violence Women workers from Bangaldesh, Cambodia, India, Indonesia, and Sri Lanka all described fearing retaliaion if they complained about any violaions of rights at work, including but not limited to gender based violence. One woman worker from an H&M supplier factory in Gurgaon (Gurugram) described: Whoever speaks against any injusice is ired from their job. Once I, along with others, went to the manager because our wage was not being paid properly. They did not remove us all together, but slowly, slowly, within ten days, the used some reason or another to remove us. Women workers reported being under constant threat of being ired. Cambodian women workers at H&M supplier factory, Roo Hsing, reported repeated threats not to renew their employment contracts if producion targets were not reached. Workers at Roo Hsing also said they feared requesing leave or refusing to work overime. Consequences for assering these legal rights under Cambodian law can be severe, including relocaing workers to alternate factories without consultaion or consent. Women workers at Yi Da, another H&M supplier located in Phnom Penh, were threatened with contract terminaion over failures to “follow instrucions.” One worker reporing that she was threatened that she would be forced to resign if she requested sick leave. In Bangladesh, women workers employed in H&M supplier factories reported that they feared losing their jobs if they reported violence and other rights violaions. Furthermore, this threat of retaliaion extends beyond the workplace where the violaion takes place. As one woman explained: “Once a worker makes a complaint, she won’t be able to get a job in any of the factories. She will be blacklisted.” A woman worker from an H&M supplier in Cakung, Jakarta described why the near daily threat of being ired was so stressful: “Every morning, there are many people who are looking for jobs in Cakung.” Firing pregnant women Workers from all of the H&M supplier factories in Bangladesh, Cambodia, India, and Indonesia reported either witnessing or experiencing terminaion of employment during pregnancy. In Sri Lanka, by contrast, trade union leaders reported that permanent women workers are able to access maternity leave. However, due to reliance on workers hired through “manpower” or temporary agencies, many women are excluded from these beneits. Workers from H&M supplier factories in Gurugram (Gurgaon), India reported that women are rouinely ired from their jobs during their pregnancy. Permanent workers report being forced to take leaves without pay for the period of their pregnancy. Contract, piece rate, and casual workers reported that although most of the ime they are reinstated in their jobs ater pregnancy, they receive completely new contracts that cause them to lose seniority. Since garment factory workers in Cambodia are predominantly women, lack of access to adequate reproducive and maternal health services is a signiicant issue. As early as 2012, workers organizaions began reporing that pregnant women were regularly threatened with dismissal from garment manufacturing jobs. This led many women to terminate pregnancies in order to keep their jobs. Women also force themselves to work unil the very last day before the delivery, puing their own lives at risk. Most women on FDCs do not get their contracts renewed ater they go on maternity leave (CCHR 2014; Nuon 2011). Deprivations of liberty Women garment workers reported being forced to work through lunch and overime. They described relocaion from one factory building to another without noice or consent. They also reported being unable to take legally mandated sick leave. Women workers employed in H&M supplier factories in Gurugram (Gurgaon) and Faridabad described daily restricions on their mobility at work: If the piece is urgent, our lunch hour is shited. The in-charge says tells us to inish the urgent pieces and then have lunch. We are not allowed to go to the toilet, the targets are so high. The in-charge things like, “if you go to the toilet, who will do the work? Who is going to complete the target? Go to work and inish it.” If I take even a bit too long returning from bathroom, the supervisor will take away my machine coil. I have to go and ask him for it. Then I have to tell him why it took me so much ime in the bath room. 67 68 CONTENTS In Bangladesh, women employed in H&M producion factories reported being forced to work overime and during holidays. Workers also reported being prevented from taking toilet breaks. Women workers in an H&M supplier factory Cakung, North Jakarta, Indonesia reported that if they missed work due to menstruaion, they have to provide a doctors’ noice or they will be considered to have taken unpaid leave. This is in violaion of Indonesian Labour Law (No. 13/2003, aricle 81) that enitles women workers to two days of menstruaion leave each month without a doctors’ noice. The doctors noice requirement further prevents women from taking leave because they must bear the costs associated with the doctors’ appointment. In another H&M supplier factory, women workers reported that they did not take their menstruaion leave because they were paid double to work through this legal leave period. High producion targets also prevent workers from observing religious pracices. Indonesian garment workers employed in H&M supplier factories, a majority of whom are Muslim, reported that they were unable to take a break to pray. If they do, they will be unable to make their producion targets. In Cambodia, forced overime is a characterisic management pracice. All workers in H&M supplier factories interviewed by CENTRAL reported working in excess of 50 hours a week. Workers at Roo Hsing factory all reported working 60 hours per week on average. One worker at Roo Hsing told CENTRAL: Workers are forced to do overime when demands are high. If they don’t do it they are threatened to have their contracts CONTENTS terminated. If workers ask to take leave they are threatened with terminaion. These working hours, documented in H&M supplier factories, violate H&M’s Sustainability Commitment requires overime to be voluntary and not to exceed 12 hours per week. Employers are required to ensure that workers do not work in excess of 48 hours per week on a “regular basis” (H&M 2016). Forced overime is most common during the height of the garment high season, which overlaps with Cambodia’s hotest season. From AprilAugust, workers report being forced to work up to 14 hours a day—as well as on Sundays and naional holidays—in sweltering heat, without adequate supply of clean drinking water or any breaks. These condiions have led to mass faining episodes among Cambodian women garment workers resuling from over exerion exacerbated by inadequate nutriion. Such episodes of mass faining have occurred in factories from which H&M supplies. In 2013, as H&M launched their latest ‘conscious’ collecion, the Clean Clothes Campaign hits back with its own spoof campaign highlighing the plight of thousands of garment workers sufering from malnutriion who work in factories supplying H&M, amongst others. Five years later, these dangerous condiions persist for women workers in H&M garment supply chains. 69 70 CONTENTS CONTENTS CHAPTER 5: Risk factors for violence in the H&M supply chain This secion documents risk factors for violence in the H&M garment supply chain, including use of short term contracts, producion targets, industrial discipline pracices, wage related rights abuses, excessive working hours, and unsafe workplaces. Barriers to accountability—including unauthorized subcontracing, denial of freedom of associaion, and failure to require independent monitoring—promote a culture of impunity among perpetrators of violence and prevent women from seeking accountability and relief. The risk factors documented in this empirical secion are presented themaically in order to surface the paterns of rights violaions in Bangladesh, Cambodia, India, Indonesia, and Sri Lanka. Working conditions 1. Short term contracts Temporary and contract employment relaions are common employment relaionships across global producion networks. Short-term contracts make it easier to hire and ire workers and therefore save on labour costs during cycles when producion wanes, or as factory units shit locaion within and across naional borders. Illegal use of short-term contracts is common in the Bangladeshi, Cambodian, Indian, Indonesian, and Sri Lankan garment industries (LeBaron et. al. 2018; SLD 2012)—including in H&M supply chains. Women workers employed under shortterm hiring contracts are at constant risk of being fired. Threats of non-renewal undermine workers’ ability to report workplace violence. Copyright 2018 Natalie Leifer for Asia Floor Wage While the H&M Sustainability Commitment states that obligaions to employees shall not be avoided through the use of “labor-only contracing, ixed-term contracts or through appreniceship schemes,” there is nothing speciically in the Sustainability Commitment which forbids the usage of short-term, or repeated short-term, contracts. Rather, suppliers limiing the usage of ixed-term contracts is included only as an ‘aspiraional’ requirement (H&M 2016). In Indonesia, women workers reported that non-permanent work agreements facilitate terminaion and changes in employment status based upon employers’ needs and concerns— including shiting work orders, avoiding paid holidays, and retaliaion for union acivity. Contract labour in Gurugram (Gurgaon), Haryana, India Use of contract labour is pervasive in Gurgaon, Haryana—an urban industrial hub within the Delhi, Naional Capital Region. An esimated 6080% of the garment workforce is employed as contract workers. Casual and contract workers lack job security, social security beneits, and freedom of associaion. This facilitates sidestepping of statutory obligaions by employers and creates a constant state of insecurity for workers (Chan 2013). In H&M supplier factories in Gurugram (Gurgaon), India, within a single factory, workers are employed by diferent contractors responsible for paricular producion lines. Line contractors may also funcion as supervisors. Many workers employed on these lines are hired as daily wage workers. High levels of labor mobility between factories within the garment sector in India undermines freedom of associaion and collecive bargaining. 71 72 CONTENTS H&M supplier factories in Haryana fire and rehire workers to avoid paying benefits associated with seniority. In Khandsa, Haryana, workers experienced sudden layoffs in September 2015. At the time of investigation, this H&M supplier held 6 production units in Khandsa, Haryana— identified as Plots number 7, 293, 342, 344, 365 and 704. In September 2015, Plot 7 was shut down due to low orders. All workers employed at CONTENTS Asia Floor Wage Alliance invesigaions conducted between August and October 2015, found that in all four H&M supplier factories surveyed in the Delhi, Naional Capital Region in India employed contract workers. For instance, in one silver-rated H&M supplier factory in Gurugram, (Gurgaon), Haryana, India, the vast majority of workers are hired as contract workers. Of the 14 producion lines, no more than 4 lines are comprised of salaried workers. The remaining 10-11 lines are illed by workers hired through intermediary labour contractors and paid by piece rate. Workers report that these employment pracices facilitate arbitrary terminaion that deprives workers of job security, pension, healthcare, seniority beneits and gratuity. Arbitrary terminaion or high turnover seriously interferes with exercise of freedom of associaion. Plot 7 were terminated and given their dues. Just 25 days later, this H&M supplier reopened Plot 7 and hired workers from Plot 342 in place of terminated workers. Plot 342 workers joined Plot 7. As a result of this manipulation, Plot 7 workers lost their seniority and gratuity and the corresponding ability to seek wages corresponding with their tenure within the company. Plot 7 workers who had formed a union were scattered, disrupting their capacity to exercise their right to freedom of association and engage in collective bargaining. Workers employed by this factory also reported that through various manipulations, they are routinely required to terminate employment after 8-10 months and rejoin as new workers. This process—a form of wage theft—systematically denies workers access to benefits associated with seniority, including raises and gratuity. Abusive use of Fixed Duraction Contracts (FDCs) in Phnom Penh, Cambodia Under the Cambodian Labour Law, factory owners can either engage workers on undetermined duraion contracts (UDCs) or on ixed duraion contracts (FDCs) that specify a contract end date. Factory managers can issue FDCs and renew them one or more imes for up to two years. Approximately 70% of workers at H&M supplier factories interviewed by CENTRAL were on shortterm contracts, with the rest on either long-term or undetermined duraion contracts. Cambodian workers have challenged the abusive use of FDCs in collecive disputes before the Arbitraion Council. The Council has consistently ruled that according to aricle 67 of the 1997 Labour Law, factories cannot engage workers on FDCs beyond two years and that if they do, such workers are enitled to the same beneits and protecions as workers on UDCs. The Garment Manufacturers Associaion in Cambodia (GMAC) has contested this interpretaion of the 1997 Labour Law. Asia Floor Wage Alliance invesigaions, conducted between August and October 2015, found that among the 11 H&M supplier factories in Phnom Penh surveyed for this study, 9 coninued to employ workers on ixed duraion contracts. Out of 42 workers employed on ixed duraion contracts, 28 did not receive social security, maternity or seniority beneits. On March 18, 2015, H&M issued a new internal policy for suppliers: all ixed duraion contracts for Cambodian workers with at least two years seniority would be converted to contracts of limited duraion by the end of 2015. If enforced, CENTRAL esimated that this new policy would stand to beneit 57,979 workers in 31 factories (AFW- Cambodia 2015). However, according to CENTRAL, as of December 2015,31 out of 72 H&M suppliers coninued to use illegal contracts. The ILO Terminaion of Employment Convenion, 1982 (No. 158) and Terminaion of Employment Recommendaion, 1982 (No. 166) govern the use of short-term contracts. These instruments call upon states to ensure that contracts for speciic periods are not used to diminish protecion against unfair terminaion. Instead, ixed-term contracts should be limited to condiions where the nature of work, circumstances, or interests of the worker require them. In instances where short-term contracts are renewed one or more imes, or when they are not required, states are instructed to consider ixed-term contracts as contracts of indeterminate duraion (R166, Art. 3). In order to curb arbitrary dismissals, states are required to implement safeguards including writen warnings followed by a reasonable 73 74 CONTENTS CONTENTS period for improvement. Where an employer needs to terminate a worker due to economic, technological, structural, or other similar consideraions, these decisions should be made according to pre-deined criteria that consider the interests of the worker as well as the employer (R166, Arts. 8, 23). • 2. Production targets While H&M establishes standards for suppliers with regard to overime and leave, the Sustainability Commitment makes no menion of producion targets. In this sense, there is nothing in H&M’s Sustainability Commitment prevening suppliers from seing unrealisically high producion targets for workers. Use of producion targets and piece rate wages create sustained pressure among workers to meet targets at the expense of taking breaks to rest, using restrooms and even drinking water. Across Asian global value chains, workers in divisions ranging from sewing, trimming excess thread, quality checking and packaging are rouinely assigned producion targets. Many are also paid by piece rate. Women workers from across the H&M garment supply chain described high producion targets measured across short ime intervals: • • Cambodia: Workers at H&M supplier factory, Roo Hsing, described standard producion targets as being 230 pieces per hour per line, with one line made up of 59 workers, but noted that this target may vary depending on the product. Indonesia: Workers employed in an H&M supplier factory in Indonesia reported that they were required to produce 90-120 pieces every 25 minutes, with imed intervals to determine if targets were met. Workers reported that they were not allowed to leave the factory unil their producion targets are met, extending the working day for another 1-1.5 hours. Sri Lanka: Workers employed in an H&M supplier factory in Vavuniya District, Northern Province, Sri Lanka described producion targets of 150-200 pieces every hour. Producion targets vary by garment type, but rouinely require workers to be accountable for producing one or more items per minute (Table 6). Producion targets also vary for diferent categories of workers. A woman worker from an H&M supplier factory in Gurugram (Gurgaon), India, described: I work as contract labor. They give us huge targets—much higher than we can complete. Even the permanent workers do not support us. They compare their targets with ours. They get paid more than us, and sill we have higher targets. Bangladeshi and Sri Lankan workers from H&M supplier factories interviewed for this study described feeling that there were not enough workers to meet their unrealisic producion demands. Bangladeshi workers in one FGD said that 70 workers typically handle the work that 100 workers could reasonably carry. Cambodian women workers employed at H&M garment supplier factories agreed that they felt that their producion targets were not realisic. Producion targets were a signiicant underlying source of violence at Roo Hsing, an H&M supplier factory in Cambodia. Garment Pieces producion produced/ operaion hour (worker account) Neck 50 gather Elasic joint 50 Atach 50 shoulder Fold frill 25 Frill gather 25 Atach 25 sleeve Sleeve 50 overlay Neck bend 50 Neck inish 50 Fold 50 Skirt side 25 overlay Side pin 50 sitch (panel) Botom 50 fold Wash/ 25 care label atachment Skirt 50 gathering Top skirt 50 belt atachment Wait belt 50 Pieces Piece rate in INR Total earning per hour in INR Total earning in 8-hour day (INR) Total earnings in 8-hour day (USD) Total earnings in 8-hour day (EUR) 400 1 50 400 6.16 4.99 400 400 1 1 50 50 400 400 6.16 6.16 4.99 4.99 200 200 200 3 3 3 75 75 75 600 600 600 9.23 9.23 9.23 7.48 7.48 7.48 400 1.5 75 600 9.23 7.48 400 400 400 200 1.5 1.5 1.5 3 75 75 75 75 600 600 600 600 9.23 9.23 9.23 9.23 7.48 7.48 7.48 7.48 400 1.5 75 600 9.23 7.48 400 2 100 800 12.31 9.98 200 3 75 600 9.23 7.48 400 2 100 800 12.31 9.98 400 1 50 400 6.16 4.99 400 1.25 62.5 500 7.69 6.24 Table 6: Piece-rate targets and earnings for contract workers, by type of producion operaion, in an H&M supplier factory in Gurugram (Gurgaon), India 75 76 CONTENTS Women workers at H&M supplier factory, Roo Hsing, stated that the sewing section was the most stressful section to work in because of production targets which increase daily. Women workers at Roo Hsing reported that supervisors will shout at them and push them if targets are not met. Women reported being forced to work through lunch, as well as overime late into the night, in order to reach producion targets. Workers who failed to reach producion targets reported being belitled by, oten foreign, management and viciously abused. One worker recounted at Roo Hsing recounted to CENTRAL: I personally saw the manager abuse workers and force them to work harder to meet the target. All paricipants from Yi Da Manufacturer reported experiencing verbal abuse and threats of contract terminaion from team leaders and management stemming from high producion targets. One worker at H&M supplier factory in Cambodia, Yi Da Manufacturer recounted: Team leaders pressure workers to work harder to reach the target. The team leader threatens to end their contract if they do not. In Cambodia, increasing compeiion from regional neighbours with lower wages such as factories are under signiicant pressure to maintain their compeiive edge (World Bank 2017). This manifests in targeing workers with verbal abuse and insults in an atempt to impel them to reach constantly-increasing producion targets. CONTENTS 3. Failure to pay a living wage The coninued failure by H&M suppliers to pay a living wage – despite H&M having commited in 2013 to changing this fact – exposes women garment workers to risks of violence in numerous ways. Low wages bind women to grinding producion targets and excessive overime hours—and, even then, they may not earn enough to meet basic nutriional requirements for themselves and their families. In a focus group discussion with researchers from the Society for Labour and Development, women employed at an H&M supplier factory in Gurugram (Gurgaon), India discussed the challenges they faced in purchasing nutriional food and afording decent housing on the wages they earn: “We buy low quality food products and dresses that are cheaper. We usually cook potatoes with lat bread. Milk products, meat, and ish are far from our reach.” “We carry some of the food grains from our naive place so that we can save money on food. Even basic food items are much costly over here.” “We buy things in small quaniies. Our income is low and we do not space to keep anything in our one room. There is no kitchen. We have no venilaion for fresh air.” In Tirippur, India, a woman worker employed at an H&M supplier factory reported that she didn’t even earn enough to buy food from the canteen at the factory where she worked: Our salary is so low that I can’t aford the food that is available in the factory canteen. Even that is out of my reach. I carry my own lunch box. H&M supplier factories seek exemptions from paying national minimum wages Not only do garment suppliers fail to Malnutrition due to inadequate wages and gender disparity in employer provided meals pay living wages, in some production hubs, they are also able to access legal The combination of calorie deficiency and relentless working hours inflicts violence upon the bodies of women garment workers, both in the wages it withholds and the labour it extracts. exemptions from paying minimum wages. In an H&M supplier factory in Vavuniya Distrit, Northern Province, Sri Lanka, women workers reported paying for the food they receive at lunch ime, but being given less food than male workers. One woman explained: 246.15). This H&M supplier factory was Our food porions are diferent according to our gender. At lunch in the company canteen, male co- workers and supervisors get more food than we do. Malnutriion due to inadequate wages and excessive hours of work has signiicant physical consequences for women garment workers. For instance, malnutriion is prevalent among Cambodian garment workers. Data gathered by tracking monthly food purchases by 95 workers employed in a range of garment factories in Cambodia, compared with recommended amounts and workers’ Body Mass Index (BMI), revealed that workers were found to intake an average of 1598 calories per day, around half the recommended among for a woman working in an industrial context (McMullen 2013). In a February 2012 hearing before the Permanent People’s Tribunal held in Phnom Penh Cambodia, For instance, an H&M supplier in Bogor, West Java pays IDR 3.2 million—10% less than the minimum wage in Bogor which is set at 3,483,667.39 (USD also one of 30 companies that requested the Bogor local government to suspend the requirement of paying minimum wages in 2018. The exemption for this H&M supplier factory was approved together with requests from 19 other companies by the Regent of Bogor. This application for this H&M supplier factory was subsequently rejected by the Governor of West Java Province, a higher-level authority. For H&M a commitment to minimum wage must include insisting that supplier factories pay minimum wages, and paying for orders at a rate that ensures financial backing to this commitment. 77 78 CONTENTS CONTENTS Worker strategies The Asia Floor Wage Alliance (AFWA), a global coalition of trade unions, workers’ rights and human rights organizations, provides a detailed formula for calculating living wages across national contexts. The AFWA definition of a living wage specifies that living wage calculations must include support for all family members, basic nutritional needs of a worker and other basic needs, including housing, healthcare, education and some basic savings. The Asia Floor Wage Alliance living wage calculation is based on the following considerations (Figures 8 and 9): • A worker needs to support themselves and two other consumption units. [One consumption unit supports either one adult or two children] • An adult requires 3000 calories a day in order to carry out physically demanding work in good health. • Within Asia, food costs amount for half of a worker’s monthly expenditure. Based upon these assumptions, the Asia Floor Wage is calculated in Purchasing Power Parity $ (PPP$). This fictitious World Bank currency is built upon consumption of goods and services, allowing standard of living between countries to be compared regardless of the national currency. Accounting for high inflation, Asia Floor Wage figures are calculated annually. As explained by AFWA Coordinator, Anannya Bhattacharjee: The gap between the minimum wage and the cost of living has widened in recent years. High inflation has sent the cost of living soaring in many Asian countries, but starting salaries remain unchanged—often for several years. (Pasariello 2013) In order to calculate annual Asia Floor Wage figures, the AFWA carries out regular and ongoing food basket research (AFWA 2016a). AFW annual PPP$ wage figures are then calculated annually based upon up to date national food basket research. For instance, the 2017 Asia Floor Wage figure is PPP$ 1181. These wage figures are then converted into local currency (Table 6)(AFWA 2017). The AFW wage calculation method provides an instructive model for H&M and other brands in setting living wages that correspond to workers needs and consider rising costs of living. Country Bangladeh Cambodia India Indonesia conv. factor 31.90 1642.9 19.98 4985.7 Asia Floor Wage in local currency 37661 Takas 1,939,606 Riel 23588 Rupees 5,886,112 Rupiah Table 6: Asia Floor Wage Figure in local currencies PAY GARMENT WORKERS A LIVING WAGE A worker should be able to afford: 1 2 3 4 food rent healthcare education 5 6 7 clothing transportation savings A living wage is a human right, for all people, all over the world Figure 8: Basic needs included in Asia Floor Wage calculaions A WORKER IS SUPPORTING THEMSELVES 1 2 1 4 X WORKER + x adult dependents or x adult + 2 x children or x children OR OR + Figure 9: Asia Floor Wage Alliance, inancial dependents and worker responsibility 79 80 CONTENTS CONTENTS Lockstich Lives: Migrants in the Megacity Migrant workers and the New Urban Agenda In the lead up to UN Habitat III, the Society for Labour and Development and HELM Studio launched Lockstitch Lives – Migrants in the Megacity, a 360-degree interactive documentary which transports a user to the neighborhoods of Gurgaon, to learn the rugged daily realities of scores of migrant families. Enter Lockstitch Lives (www.lockstitchlives.org). Venture into the homes where migrants live and listen to their stories as they describe the challenges they face in accessing clean water and sanitation facilities, navigating relationships with landlords and keeping themselves safe from violence at home and at work. These experiences are deeply personal, unique to the Delhi, NCR — and are also reflective of the living and working conditions faced by migrant workers in megacities across the globe. Over the last two decades, hundreds of thousands of workers have moved to Delhi’s National Capital Region, spurred on by India’s uneven development. The city of Gurgaon has transformed into one of the world’s largest industrial hubs and migrant workers have been integral to this transformation. Held at an arm’s length by the city, they live deprived of even the most basic entitlements. Using 360-degree multimedia, Virtual Reality, photography and video, Lockstitch Lives provides deep insight into the living and working conditions of these workers communities, and aims to deliver their voice and struggle palpably and honestly. The New Urban Agenda — a global strategy around urbanization that will guide global strategy around urbanization for the next two decades. Like the UN Sustainable Development Goals, the New Urban Agenda has the potential to inform programmatic and funding priorities for years to come. The New Urban Agenda must speak for the needs of millions of working families, to bring dignity to the industrial sectors of India. Illustraion Copyright 2016 Mridul Sharma for SLD 81 82 CONTENTS CONTENTS Country conv. factor Bangladesh Cambodia India Indonesia 31.90 1642.9 19.98 4985.7 Asia Floor Wage in local currency 37661 Takas 1,939,606 23588 Rupees 5,886,112 Rupiah Table 7: Asia Floor Wage Figure in local currencies Asia Floor Wage Alliance-Cambodia (AFWA-C) reported health problems associated with poor working environments and exacerbated by poverty-level wages: Women workers are forced to base their nutriion on food with a totally insuicient caloric content, many hours of overime work become pracically mandatory, thus making much worse the chronic exposure to the harmful environment (Barria 2014). Whilst H&M states that a fair living wage “should” be enough to meet the basic needs of employees and their families and provide some discreionary income, the only requirements for suppliers with respect to wage levels are that they meet at least the minimum naional legal level or that set in collecive bargaining agreements, whichever is the higher (H&M 2016). H&M’s Sustainability Commitment requires suppliers to pay wages and beneits that meet at least the minimum provided in naional laws or collecive bargaining agreements. Whilst the Sustainability Commitment states that a fair living wage “should” always be enough to meet the basic needs of workers along with some discreionary income, there is no requirement for suppliers to pay such a living wage. However, as detailed in Chapter 3, the actual wages paid, which are nowhere near a living wage, even based on H&M’s own igures. Our research suggests, however, that these standards are routinely violated by supplier factories. 4. Excessive hours of work and inadequate rest A woman worker employed in an H&M supplier factory in North Jakarta, Indonesia described her regular work day that stretches for nearly 11-hours a day, six days a week: Long hours Encouraging violation of international labour standards governing hours of work, production targets and piece rate systems also incentivize excessive hours of work and inadequate periods of rest. These conditions damage workers’ health, increase the risk of workplace accidents, pose risks to workers who must commute late at night and early in the morning, and infringe on freedom of association. According to the ILO Convenion No. 1 regarding hours of work, working hours should not exceed eight hours in a day and forty-eight hours in a week. Under Convenion No. 1, working hours may not exceed 56 per week except in cases of processes carried on coninuously by a succession of shits (ILO Convenion1, Aricle 4). The H&M Sustainability Commitment requires weekly working hours, including overime hours, to comply with naional law, ILO convenions, or collecive agreement, whichever afords the greater protecion for workers. The Commitment further states that employees shall not be required to work more than 48 hours per week on a regular basis. H&M also speciies that overime work should be voluntary and not exceed 12 hours per week. 7:15 am 7:30 am 11:30 am 12:15 pm 4:30 pm 6 pm We go through a body check before entering the factory. We have to be in the factory and clean our work spaces. First shit Lunch hour Second shit Second shit ends but if the target is not met, we stay unil 6pm We go through a body check to leave the factory Workers from Bangladesh, Cambodia, India, Indonesia and Sri Lanka all reported that they are forced to work overime when orders increase. Low wages, as discussed in the previous secion, lead workers to prolong working hours. Others report that they do not refuse overime assignments because refusal could cost them their jobs. The Indonesian women workers interviewed for this study are union members, and know their legal wage enitlement. They explained, however, that many workers do not know how to calculate their overime work in order to ensure that they are given legal overime advances. Of the Cambodian workers who paricipated in this study from H&M supplier factories, all reported that their typical work-week exceeded 50 hours per week and, in many cases, 60 hours per week—and that these overime hours are not opional. Cambodian workers reported that they were not allowed to leave the factory before overime hours are over. Others reported fearing that they would lose their jobs if they did not work overime. Women workers at H&M supplier factory, Roo Hsing, reported working 60 hours per week on average. One worker at Roo Hsing explained: Workers are forced to do overime when demands are high. If they don’t do it they are threatened to have their contracts terminated. If workers ask to take leave they are threatened with terminaion. Workers also reported being required to work when they are ill. A Sri Lankan woman worker, employed in an H&M supplier factory in Vavuniya District, Northern Province, Sri Lanka, described the consequences of resing, even when she is sick: Even if we are sick, sill we have to inish our work on ime. We have a room to rest if we are sick, but if I use that room, I will be blamed by my supervisor for missing the target. Our supervisors don’t like us even opening the door of the room. If we get rest there, we won’t be able to inish our tasks. Cambodian women workers described even harsher consequences for resing while ill. A woman worker from H&M supplier factory, Yi Da Manufacturer, said: 83 84 CONTENTS When workers ask permission for sick leave, the administraion oicer threatens to force them to submit a leter of resignaion instead. As discussed in the subsequent secion in this Chapter on unsafe workplaces, this can be paricularly damaging to their health during the hot season which lasts from March through May. Workers at Roo Hsing stated that this ime of the year was paricularly bad as the working temperature in the factory is extremely hot and dusty. Violence during late commutes During high order periods, women workers are made to work the night shit. Without safe transportaion opions, women workers reported facing harassment, robbery, and other crimes on their way home. A woman worker from an H&M supplier factory in Gurugram(Gurgaon) described the walk home ater dark Ater 10 pm at night it’s really scary to come alone on that road. It is not well lit. There are some street lights, but they are placed far apart. There are dogs everywhere and they bark. Thet and purse snatching is also common. Last week, one of my friends was robbed. Her purse was stolen. We are also teased by men on the street as we walk home from work. Workers at H&M supplier factories in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, Roo Hsing and Yi Da, reported having to stay at work very late and therefore having to travel home alone in the dark by motorbike. CONTENTS Women workers employed in an H&M supplier factory in Vavuniya District, North Province, Sri Lanka also reported both working late into the night and risking harassment and robbery on their way home. The ILO prohibits excessive hours of work and inadequate periods of rest on the grounds that such condiions damage workers’ health and increase the risk of workplace accidents. Long working hours also prohibit workers atending to family and paricipaing in the community. ILO standards on working ime provide a framework for regulaing hours of work. Relevant standards include: the Hours of Work (Industry) Convenion, 1919 (No.1); Weekly Rest (Industry) Convenion, 1921 (No. 14); Holidays with Pay Convenion (Revised), 1970 (No. 32); Night Work Convenion, 1990 (No. 171); and Part-Time Work Convenion, 1994 (No. 175). To protect women as well as adolescents from non-standard working hours, the ILO has provided speciic provisions on night duty restricion. Women without disincion of age are not to be employed during the night in any public or private industrial undertaking, other than an undertaking in which only members of the same family are employed (ILO Convenion No. 89). 5. Unsafe workplaces Poor ventilation and excessive heat The H&M Sustainability Commitment states that workplace safety and the health and safety of employees must be a priority at all imes and mandates the provision of a safe and hygienic working environment, including adequate venilaion. This Commitment, however, requires enforcement. Due to exposure to high temperatures and high levels of chemical substances, exacerbated by poor venilaion systems and nutriion among workers, episodes of mass faining are a regular occurrence in Cambodian garment factories. In 2017, the Cambodian National Social Security Fund identified 1,603 cases of fainting across 22 factories, including H&M suppliers. 1,599—or 98%--of these cases were women. Despite these signiicant occupaional health and safety concerns, H&M refused to atend the People’s Tribunal on Living Wage as a fundamental right of Cambodian Garment Workers, held from February 5th-8th, 2012 in Phnom Penh. In this February 2012 hearing before the Permanent People’s Tribunal held in Phnom Penh Cambodia, Asia Floor Wage Alliance-Cambodia (AFWA-C) reported health problems associated with poor working environments. Workers and their representaives tesiied to working condiions described as “humid and hot, noisy, poorly lit, with scarce if any venilaion, the uncontrolled and uninformed use of chemicals, excessive dust, lack of preventaive educaion and litle availability of personal protecive equipment.” The ILO addresses occupaional health and safety in the Occupaional Safety and Health Convenion, 1981 (No. 155) and its Protocol of 2002, as well as in more than 40 standards that deal with occupaional safety and health. Convenion No. 155 requires each member state, in consultaion with workers and employers, to formulate, implement and periodically review a coherent naional policy on occupaional safety, occupaional health and the working environment. The H&M Sustainability Commitment states that workplace safety and the health and safety of employees must be a priority at all imes and mandates the provision of a safe and hygienic working environment. Minimum requirements for this include the compliance with all applicable naional laws and regulaions and no unsafe buildings or exposure to hazardous machines, equipment or substances. There must be adequate ire safety equipment and regular training and evacuaion drills held for workers. Clean drinking water and toilet faciliies must be provided. Barriers to accountability 1. Unauthorized subcontracting Subcontracing pracices make chains of accountability more diicult to establish. • • Brands typically establish contracts with Tier 1 or parent companies and list these companies exclusively when disclosing producion units. Tier 1 companies, however, engage subcontractors to complete orders from brands. Subcontracing funnels work from regulated faciliies to unregulated contractors where employees typically work longer, for less and usually in worse condiions. In instances where brand labels are sewn in by the parent company, workers in subcontracing faciliies may not even know the brand they are producing for (Finster 2015). For instance, in September 2014, Full Fortune, a Cambodian subcontractor to Dignity Kniters—a publicly listed H&M supplier—dismissed 27 85 86 CONTENTS workers for exercising their right to join a union. The dismissed workers had to collect H&M garment tags to prove that Full Fortune produced for H&M at the ime of the dispute. CONTENTS 2. Denial of freedom of association and collective bargaining As explained by CCAWDU Vice President, Athit Kong, a former garment worker: “It is the mulinaional brands who extract by far the largest proits from the labour of Cambodian garment workers, yet they hide behind layers of outsourcing and subcontracing to avoid responsibility” (Finster 2015). Denial of fundamental rights to freedom of associaion and collecive bargaining forecloses an important pathway for redress for women workers. By prevening workers from responding collecively to violence and risk factors for violence, barriers to freedom of associaion and collecive bargaining in H&M supplier factories fosters a culture of impunity around violence. Even when workers have demonstrated that H&M sources from abusive subcontractors, H&M has not taken steps to recify these violaions. Women working in an H&M supplier factory in Cakung, North Jakarta described hiding their union ailiaion to avoid retaliaion: For instance, in response to allegaions of rampant labour and human rights abuses in texile mills in Tamil Nadu, H&M blacklisted Super Spinning Texile Mills. Within this facility, women and young girls were found working under condiions that amounted to forced labour. In this case, workers reported being lured from their homes by false promises, engaging in work as young as 15 years old, working 60 hours weeks and living in rooms with shared bathrooms that accommodated up to 35 workers. Workers also reported that they did not have contracts. Monthly salaries ranged from USD 25 to USD 65 per month. Although H&M blacklisted Super Spinning Mills, prohibiing suppliers from ordering yarn from them for H&M orders, the company denied responsibility, claiming that they were only tangenially connected to the mill through a supplier in Bangladesh. H&M did not take any further acion to recify rights abuses faced by workers in the mill (Gustafsson 2014). We are members of a union, but we hide our idenity as union members because we are afraid the company will inimidate us. We will wait unil we are strong enough, unil we get more member. Unil then, if the company inds out, they will make it uncomfortable for us to work here. The very structure of work in H&M supplier factories creates obstacles to freedom of associaion. Long working hours deny workers opportunity to engage with one another. High turnover rates as workers are hired and ired also undermine worker solidarity and collecive acion. For instance, in one H&M supplier factory in Gurugram (Gurgaon), Haryana, India, workers engaged in piece rate work—oten working up to 17 hours per day—have no ime to exercise their fundamental rights to freedom of associaion. Further undermining freedom of associaion, piece rate workers tend to be an unstable workforce as their extremely high targets rapidly wear them out physically, resuling in exceedingly high turnover. In another H&M supplier factory in Gurugram (Gurgaon), Haryana, India, union organizers reported that workers were under threat of losing their jobs if they openly joined a union. Within this factory, as a result of sudden layofs in September 2015, workers who had formed a union were scatered, disruping their capacity to exercise their right to freedom of associaion and engage in collecive bargaining. In H&M supplier factories in Indonesia, workers and union organizers explained that high turnover prevents workers from forming a union. Within these producion units, very few workers hold coninuous employment for more than a year. Workers report being terminated for a period of one month before being rehired. The constant threat of terminaion, trade union leaders explained, creates a signiicant barrier to organizing. In Bangladesh, none of the women workers employed in H&M supplier factories were union members. Women from one H&M supplier factory in Dhaka reported that the factory management pays some workers to report worker collecive acion: They pay other workers to report any signs of complaint or protest. You can be reported for raising your voice on an issue, making contact with trade unions or workers organizations, or even speaking about workers’ rights in the factory. Union leaders in CATU, reported that in H&M supplier factories in Phnom Penh, Roo Hsing and Yi Da, when they atempt to register their union in a factory, their applicaions are rejected by the Ministry of Labour and Vocaional Training for minor grammaical mistakes or spelling errors. As a result, CATU has a union presence in these factories, but not Most Representaive Status under the Law on Trade Unions which would give them the right to collecively bargain for beter condiions and represent workers in collecive labour disputes. Use of the Law on Trade Unions to reduce the inluence and status of independent unions in the Cambodian garment sector impedes workers’ ability to collecively bargain for beter contracts. Even in workplaces where workers do manage to form and register unions, across the Asian garment industry, trade union leadership is overwhelmingly male. Accordingly, trade union leaders may not adequately attend to gender based violence in the workplace. Violaions of freedom of associaion and collecive bargaining, core labour rights protected protected under the Declaraion on Fundamental Principles and Rights at Work, including the Freedom of Associaion and Protecion of the Right to Organize Convenion, 1948 (No. 87) and Right to Organize and Collecive Bargaining Contenion, 1949 (No. 98). The ILO Declaraion on Fundamental Principles and Rights at Work recognizes the right to organize as one of four fundamental rights to be upheld by ILO member states. Together, the Freedom of Associaion and Protecion of the Right to Organize Convenion, 1948 (No. 87) and Right to Organize and Collecive Bargaining Convenion, 1949 (No.98) outline the right to join a trade union and the right to organize. The Freedom of Associaion and Protecion of the Right to Organize Convenion, 1948 (No. 87) calls upon states to prevent discriminaion against 87 88 CONTENTS April 2018: Violent crackdown on KOOGU elected representatives in an H&M supplier factory in Bangalore, Karnataka, India CONTENTS my clothes. . . The third floor in-charge hit me more, again, pulled away my Thali and chain from my neck, and snatched my LENOVA mobile phone. I heard the quality- In April 2018, the Karnataka Garment Workers Union (KOOGU) Union presented a letter in-charge saying, “you lower caste women . . .your caste people should not have to the General Manager of an H&M supplier factory in Bangalore, India requesting been given jobs like this.” The floor in-charge said, “you whore, your caste people a discussion of three demands: inclusion of an elected worker on the factory health should be kept where the slippers are kept.” While beating me up, the outsider Mr. committee to address the quality of water available to workers at the factory, irregular Panchakshari and a few more local rowdies abused me using foul language saying transportation to the factory, and payments below living wages. “you whore, fuck your mother’s caste.” I was scared. There was no reaction from the Rather than calling a meeting, two days later, the elected representatives of the union Policeman. Then my friend pulled me from that place where I was surrounded and were assaulted by management. Leaders were dragged, abused, and insulted—some she took me outside. women workers, they were insulted and demeaned along caste lines. A KOOGU press release following the incident described the violence that unfolded: Five workers required hospital treatment, with one of them was admitted as an inpatient for severe injuries. They provoked other innocent workers and forced them to beat up their own elected leaders. They were dragging the leaders, shouting at them, abusing them The workers and union office bearers went to the Madanayakanahalli Police Station and insulting them in front of their colleagues. Some of them who belonged to the to lodge a complaint. The Sub-Inspector of Police refused to register individual cases. Scheduled castes and tribes were told that they will be shown the place they belong Finally, hours later, at 10.30 pm the police registered a single First Information Report. to. They shouted at them that “it was a mistake to give employment to such low caste people.” Even after the police arrived, the worker leaders were beaten in their At the time of writing, 15 workers facing retaliatory firing were still outside of the presence. The Office bearers of the Union were not allowed to enter the factory factory, without their jobs. while the assault was conducted. KOOGU, Asia Floor Wage Alliance, and Global Labor Justice call on H&M to immediately A 31-year old woman who was employed as a tailor in the factory, and elected as a address worker demands: leader of the union, described the violence she faced: 1. Reinstate all 15 workers who were fired in retaliation for union activity; 2. Terminate employment for all factory managers and senior staff involved in the [The floor-in-charge] was yelling at me saying “these whores are trying to close down the company”. I turned back and looked at him, and he said “keep walking, attack; 3. Meet with KOOGU to discuss the original three demands: inclusion of an elected you will get to know what they will do now.” When I went downstairs, the human worker on the factory health committee to address the quality of water available to resources manager said “. . . this is Beena, hit her, kill her.” The production manager workers at the factory, irregular transportation to the factory, and payments below joined in—he said “hit her.” The sample tailor held me by my hair and starting living wages. hitting me left and right. . . The second-floor assistant production manager tore off 89 90 CONTENTS trade unions; protect employers’ and workers’ organizaions against mutual interference; and undertake measures to promote collecive bargaining. The Right to Organize and Collecive Bargaining Convenion, 1949 (No. 98), protects workers who are exercising the right to organize; upholds the principle of non-interference between workers’ and employers’ organizaions; and promotes voluntary collecive bargaining. Freedom of associaion and collecive bargaining are integral to the protecion of other labour rights. Absent freedom of associaion, workers who face retaliaion for bringing grievances have litle if any recourse. None of the factories H&M supplier factories invesigated by Asia Floor Wage Alliance had a mechanism for setling disputes and none of the workers interviewed could recall any strike or collecive acion that had taken place in the factory where they work. 3. Ineffective grievance procedures All respondents, including women workers from Bangladesh, Cambodia, and Indonesia, stated that there were no good ways for them to report cases of violence in their workplace. Even where there may be formal mechanisms in place, workers described these as inefecive. For instance, Bangladeshi women workers employed in an H&M supplier in Dhaka described the complaint box in their factory as useless. One woman explained: The factory has a complaint box and an appointed “Welfare Madame” to resolve complaints from women workers. The Welfare Madams work for the Managers. They don’t take our complaints seriously. The complaint box is useless. CONTENTS Women workers in an H&M supplier factory in Cakung, North Jakarta also described factory grievance processes as inefecive: If we have a complaint, we are told that the company provides a suggesion box. We don’t know if they read the suggesion, but we know the problems are sill there. Women workers in H&M supplier factories in India reported that not only are grievance procedures inefecive, but use of grievance mechanisms can also lead to retaliaion: If workers raise their voices against any form of injusice or their rights, they are humiliated and immediately ired. Three months ago, we complained to Priya-madame, the Welfare Lady, about one supervisorin-charge. He abused us. He used very bad words with women workers. We reported that he was targeing women workers with good reputaions in the factory for working hard and working well. We gave one woman’s name as an example. Priya-madame called a meeing with the manager, loor-in-charge, and the supervisor-in-charge. When the meeing ended and Priya-madame let, the woman worker we named was called and scolded by the loor in-charge and manager for complaining. She was asked to leave the job that very day, even though she had not even been the one to complain against the supervisor in-charge. None of the factories surveyed had a mechanism for setling disputes and none of the workers interviewed could recall any strike or collecive acion that had taken place in the factory where they work. 4. Lack of independent monitoring Workers and labour rights acivists have voiced concerns about factory monitoring methods, coverage and transparency. For instance, Human Rights Watch revealed that in Cambodia, workers reported being coached by factory management and being unable to engage with brand representaives, external monitors, government oicials or ILO Beter Factory Cambodia (BFC) monitors. As one worker reported to Human Rights Watch: Before ILO comes to check, the factory arranges everything. They reduce the quota for us so there are fewer pieces on our desks. ILO came in the aternoon and we all found out in the morning they were coming. They told us to take all the materials and hide it in the stock room. We are told not to tell them the factory makes us do overime work for so long. They also tell us that is [we] say anything we will lose business. Workers in Cambodia called for mechanisms to report violaions of rights at work to BFC monitors of site without fear of surveillance or retaliaion by management. Conirming this narraive, BFC experts reported to Human Rights Watch that their monitors were aware of factories coaching workers and that they atempted to miigate the impact of coaching as much as possible. Labour rights acivists reported that the eicacy of BFC is further undermined because factory inspecion reports are made available to managers and brands but not to workers or unions without prior rights atauthorizaion work. factory (Kashyap 2015). H&M refuses to involve trade unions in independent monitoring. H&M was invited to engage with workers at the People’s Tribunal on Living Wage as a fundamental right of Sri Lankan garment workers, held from March 17-28, 2011 in Colombo; Cambodian garment workers, held from February 5-8, 2012 in Phnom Penh, Cambodia; Indian garment workers, held from November 22-25, 2012 in Bangalore; and Indonesian garment workers, held from June 21-24, 2014 in Jakarta. H&M declined invitaions to engage with workers at each of these tribunals, despite being noiied of persistent rights violaions in their supplier factories (Butler 2012; Barria 2014). The experiences of gender based violence in H&M garment supply chains documented in this report are not isolated incidents. Rather, they relect a convergence of risk factors for gender based violence in H&M supplier factories that leave women garment workers systemaically exposed to violence. As the only global triparite insituion, the ILO has a unique role to play in not only advancing decent work in supply chains, but also ensuring that supply chain governance addresses risk factors for gender based violence, and provides accessible avenues for relief. The recommendaions that follow seek to inform emerging understanding of violence in the world of work, idenify speciic risk factors for violence in garment global producion networks, and ensure a duty among muli-naional corporaions (MNCs) and their suppliers to obey naional laws and respect internaional standards pertaining to realizaion of ILO fundamental principles and 91 92 CONTENTS CONTENTS RECOMMENDATIONS 1. Adopt an expansive deiniion of “worker” and “workplace” to ensure that all workers, workplaces, and forms of work are included in standards addressing workplace violence and harassment. 1.1. As presented in the Proposed Conclusions of Report V(2) on Ending violence and harassment in the work of work, the term “worker” should cover persons in the formal and informal economy, including “(i) persons in any employment or occupaion, irrespecive of their contractual status; (ii) persons in training, including interns and apprenices; (iii) laid-of and suspended workers; (iv) volunteers; and (v) jobseekers and job applicants.” 1.2. The proposed deiniion of worker should explicitly include all migrant workers, regardless of their legal status in the place of employment. 1.3. As presented in the Proposed Conclusions of Report V(2), standards on violence and harassment in the world of work should cover situaions, including “(a) in the workplace, including public and private spaces where they are a place of work; (b) in places where the worker is paid or takes a rest break or a meal; (c) when commuing to and from work; (d) during work-related trips or travel, training, events or social aciviies; and (e) through workrelated communicaions enabled by informaion and communicaion technologies.” 1.4. The proposed situaions should be expanded to include the following situaions: 1.4.1. employer-provided housing; 1.4.2. recruitment sites, including day-labor recruitment sites; 1.4.3. home-based work; and 1.4.4. export processing zones linked to global supply chains, including those characterized by exempions from labour laws, taxes, and restricions on union aciviies and collecive bargaining. 1.5. As presented in the Proposed Conclusions of Report V(2), “vicims and perpetrators of violence and harassment in the work of work can be employers, workers and third paries, including clients, customers, service providers, users, paients, and the public.” 1.6. The proposed deiniion of “vicims and perpetrators” should be expanded to include the following roles: 1.6.1. Muli-naional corporaions and brands, suppliers, and labor contractors in producion, agricultural, food processing, and other relevant contexts. 1.6.2. Private employment agencies as deined under Aricle 1 of the ILO Private Employment Agencies Convenion, 1997 (No. 181), including any enterprise or person, independent of the public authoriies, which provides one or more of the following labour market services: (a) services for matching ofers of and applicaions for employment; (b) services for employing workers with a view to making them available to a third party (“user enterprise”); (c) other services relaing to job seeking, such as the provision of informaion, that do not aim to match speciic employment ofers and applicaions. 2. Address risk factors for violence, including risk factors associated with the nature and seing of work and the structure of the labour market. 2.1. Address risk factors for violence rooted in the structure of the labour market. Consistent with the Report of the Commitee of Experts convened by the ILO in October 2016, recognize gender based violence as a social rather than an individual problem, requiring comprehensive responses that extend beyond speciic events, individual perpetrators, and vicims/survivors (No. 35, para. 9). 2.2. Idenify (1) garment and other global producion networks and (2) migraion corridors as sectors and sites in which workers, including women and migrant workers, are more exposed to violence and harassment. Take corresponding measures to ensure these workers are efecively protected. 2.3. Acknowledge paricular risk factors for violence in global producion networks and take the followings measures to control these risks: 2.3.1. Address cultures of impunity for violence in the workplace by prohibiing workplace retaliaion, and safeguarding fundamental rights to freedom of associaion and collecive bargaining. 2.3.2. Extend labour protecions to workers employed in situaions that are not protected by labour law and other social protecion frameworks. 2.3.3. Prohibit unrealisic producion demands and piece-rate targets that accelerate producion rates, extend working hours, create high stress working environments, and foster abuse. 2.3.4. Address concentraion of women and migrant workers in low wage, coningent work, especially in the lower iers of the supply chain. 2.3.5. Increase numbers of women in supervisory and managerial posiions 2.3.6. Call for and implement living wage standards. 2.3.7. Protect the rights of home-based workers. 2.3.8. Require muli-naional corporaions, employers, contractors, and states to maintain efecive remedies and safe, fair and efecive dispute resoluion mechanisms in cases of violence and harassment, including: 2.3.8.1. complaint and invesigaion mechanisms at the workplace level; 2.3.8.2. dispute resoluion mechanisms external to the workplace; 2.3.8.3. access to courts or tribunals; 2.3.8.4. protecion against vicimizaion of complainants, witnesses, and whistle-blowers; and 2.3.8.5. legal, social, and administraive support measures for complainants. 2.3.9. Provide workers with informaion and training on the ideniied hazards and risks of violence and harassment and the associated prevenion and protecion measures. 2.4. Recognize and address discriminaion against women that intersects with other axes of discriminaion, including low economic resources, migrant status, race, ethnicity, caste, tribe, religion, and disability. 3. Draw upon and strengthen deiniions and prohibiions addressing violence against women by the Commitee on the Eliminaion of Discriminaion against Women (CEDAW) by applying these standards to gender based violence in the world of work. 3.1. The Internaional Labour Conference should adopt standards on violence and harassment in the world of work. These standards should take the form of a Convenion supplemented by a Recommendaion. 3.2. Consistent with General Recommendaion No. 19 on violence against women, adopted by the Commitee on the Eliminaion of Discriminaion against Women (CEDAW), ILO standards should include and address (1) “violence which is directed against a woman because she is a woman;” and (2) violence that 93 94 CONTENTS CONTENTS “afects women disproporionately” (aricle 1). For instance, as documented in this study, women workers at the base of garment global producion networks are disproporionately impacted by gendered paterns of employment that concentrate women in low-wage, coningent employment. 3.3. Consistent with General Recommendaion No. 19, the deiniion of violence should include acts that inlict physical harm, mental harm, sexual harm or sufering, threats of any of these acts, coercion, and deprivaions of liberty (aricle 6). 4. Ensure a duty among MNCs and their suppliers to obey naional laws and respect internaional standards pertaining to realizaion of ILO fundamental principles and rights at work. 4.1. Noing the limits to jurisdicion under naional legal regimes, the ILO should move towards a binding legal convenion regulaing global supply chains. 4.1.1. Standards under this convenion must be at least as efecive and comprehensive as the UN Guiding Principle on Business and Human Rights and exising OECD mechanisms, including the 2011 OECD Guidelines for Mulinaional Enterprises. 4.1.2. The Convenion should include the following components, among others: 4.1.2.1. Impose liability, sustainable contracing, capitalizaion and/or other requirements on lead irms. 4.1.2.2. Establish regional and supply chain speciic inspecion mechanisms with monitoring and enforcement powers, including individual complaint mechanisms and ield invesigaion authority. 4.1.2.3. Require transparent and traceable product and producion informaion. 4.1.2.4. Address the special vulnerability of women and migrant workers on GVCs. 4.1.2.5. Limit the use of temporary, outsourced, self-employed, or other forms of contract labor that sidestep employer liability for worker protecion. 5. Pursue a Recommendaion on human rights due diligence that takes into account and builds upon exising due diligence provisions that are evolving under the United Naions Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights and the 2011 OECD Guidelines for Mulinaional Enterprises. 5.1. Take the following complementary measures to protect workers employed in global value chains: 5.1.1. Recognize the right to living wage as a human right and establish living wage criteria and mechanisms. 5.1.2. Promote sector-based and transnaional collecive bargaining and urge countries to remove naional legal barriers to these forms of collecive acion. 5.1.3. Expand work towards the eliminaion of forced labour, including promoing raiicaion and implementaion of the Forced Labour Convenion, 1930 (No. 29), Protocol to the Forced Labour Convenion 1930 and accompanying Recommendaion, 2014. 5.1.4. Coninue programs to ensure social protecion, fair wages, and health and safety at every level of GVCs. 6. Consistent with the Roadmap of the ILO programme of acion 2017-21 arising out of the work of the 105th Session (2016) of the ILO on decent work in global supply chains, knowledge generaion and disseminaion research to inform ILO global supply chain programming should include gender based violence and risk factors for gender based violence. 6.1. Research the spectrum of gender based violence impacing women workers in garment and other supply chains: 6.1.1. Since women represent the greatest majority of garment workers, the situaion of women should be urgently included in monitoring programmes to assess the spectrum of their clinical, social and personal risks. 6.1.2. Research should include physical harm, mental harm, sexual harm or sufering, threats of any of these acts, coercion, and deprivaions of liberty. 6.1.3. Research should document (1) violence which is directed against a woman because she is a woman; and (2) violence that afects women disproporionately due to gendered paterns of employment that concentrate women in low-wage, coningent employment. 6.1.4. Research should consider not only the workplace, but also related situaions including training, recruitment and placement, commutes to and from work, and housing contexts where employers exhibit signiicant control over the daily lives of workers. 6.1.5. Require an urgent, epidemiological study into deaths and disabiliies resuling from condiions of work and life of garment workers. This informaion should be made available publicly and to internaional agencies. 6.1.6. Research design and planning should be sensiive to the barriers women face in discussing and reporing violence, including workplace retaliaion, social sigma, and trauma associated with recouning situaions of violence. Due to these factors, quanitaive approaches to documening gender based violence risk underreporing and may not produce insight into the range of violence women face, associated risk factors, and barriers to reporing. 6.2. Research adverse impacts of purchasing pracices upon: 6.2.1. Core labour standards for all categories of workers across value chains. 6.2.2. Wages and beneits for all categories of value chain workers. This research should aim to saisfy basic needs of workers and their families. 6.2.3. Access to fundamental rights to food, housing, and educaion for all categories of value chain workers and their families. 6.3. Research the range of global actors that may have leverage over GVCs including investors, hedge funds, pension funds and GVC networks that deine industry standards such as Free on Board (FOB) prices. 6.3.1. This line of research should include invesigaion of the mechanisms deployed by authoritaive actors within GVCs that contribute to violaions of fundamental principles and rights at work, including but not limited to atacks on freedom of associaion, collecive bargaining, forced overime, wage thet and forced labour. 6.4. Research into the types of technical advice needed by OECD government paricipants taking a muli-stakeholder approach to address risks of adverse impacts associated with products. 95 96 CONTENTS 7. Organize a Triparite Conference on the adverse impact of contracing and purchasing pracices upon migrant workers’ rights. This conference should focus on: 7.1. The intersecion of migrant rights and ILO iniiaives to address violence against men and women in the world of work and Decent Work in Global Supply Chains. 7.2. Protecion of migrant rights as conferred under the UN Internaional Convenion on the Protecion of the Rights of all Migrant Workers and Members of their Families. May 28, 2018: Packed opening session in irst ever internaional labor standard seing on gender based violence at the Internaional Labour Conference in Geneva. Unions from around the world gather to negoiate a binding agreement to address violence and harassment in the workplace. CONTENTS 97 98 CONTENTS CONTENTS Acknowledgements This report is one in of a series of reports, enitled Workers Voices from the Global Supply Chain, including six reports to the Internaional Labour Organizaion in 2016; and three reports to the Internaional Labour Organizaion in 2018. This research was designed and coordinated by Shikha Silliman Bhatacharjee, JD. Field research conducted from January-May 2018 and associated data analysis was completed by Faisal Bin Majid, Immanuel Dahaghani, Jenny Holligan, Patrick Lee, Monower Mostafa, Thy Phalla, Sar Mora, Linda Nop, Aparna Roy, Anjum Shaheen, Abiramy Sivalogananthan, Yang Sophorn, and Wiranta Yudha. Desk research, legal analysis, and wriing contributors included Adriana Rose Feuer, Patrick Lee, Alexandra Goldwyn, Caitlin Hoover, Natalie Leifer, Shikha Silliman Bhatacharjee, and Claire Zurcher-Hamm. This research was designed and coordinated by Shikha Silliman Bhatacharjee, JD. Field research conducted from January-May 2018 and associated data analysis was completed by Faisal Bin Majid, Jenny Holligan, Patrick Lee, Monower Mostafa, Thy Phalla, Sar Mora, Linda Nop, Anjum Shaheen, Abiramy Sivalogananthan, Yang Sophorn, Sonia Wazed, Wiranta Yudha. Desk research, legal analysis, and wriing contributors included Adriana Rose Feuer, Patrick Lee, Alexandra Goldwyn, Caitlin Hoover, Natalie Leifer, Shikha Silliman Bhatacharjee, and Claire Zurcher-Hamm. This report was reviewed by Anannya Bhatacharjee, Dev Nathan, JJ Rosenbaum, Ashim Roy, and Neva Nahigal and Anne Bienias of Clean Clothes Campaign Internaional Oice. Recommendaions for the ILO at the Internaional Labour Conference, 2018 were formulated by a coaliion of organizaions including the internaional Asia Floor Wage Alliance and Global Labor Jusice, CENTRAL (Cambodia), and the Society for Labour and Development (India). These recommendaions build upon Recommendaions for the ILO at the Internaional Labour Conference, 2016, formulated by Asia Floor Wage Alliance, Jobs with Jusice (USA), Naional Guestworkers Alliance (USA), and Society for Labour and Development (India). 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