Follow the Thread - Demand transparency now!

Do you know how to find out exactly where your clothes were made, and under what conditions? Neither do we! We often lack meaningful information about where our clothes and shoes were made. A T-shirt label might say “Made in China,” but in which of the country’s thousands of factories was it made? What were the working conditions of the workers—mostly women—in these factories? 

Demanding that apparel companies publish their supplier factory information could help workers by allowing unions and other labor advocates to alert brands to labor abuses in these factories. Knowing the multitude of brands that a factory produces for can help brands co-operate on solutions to labor rights problems.

If you want to know more about what level of transparency brands committed to, read our report and check out our online overview.

Our campaign

The “Follow the Thread” Campaign is asking Forever 21, Urban Outfitters, Walmart, Primark, and Armani to commit to the Transparency Pledge developed by the coalition. This is the first step in making the industry more transparent and fostering an environment of accountability and protection of human rights of workers.

We launched a petition on three different platforms which ran from April to September 2017 and collected close to 70,000 signatures. In September we took the opinions of our supporters to the brands' doorsteps, telling them to #GoTransparent. In January and February 2018, the signatures were handed over to the brands, by delivering golden gift-wrapped boxes to stores around the world, including Hong Kong, Cologne, Zagreb and Brussels. In February 2018, Primark published their supplier list. 

Do you want to take the transparency message to the street? Download a poster with a statement of one of our petition signers here or here.

Brand responses: an overview

Below you find the overview of how brands have reacted to the Pledge.

You can also view the full table online, where you can filter and search.