Forced to resign from union

published 03-10-2013 14:16, last modified 10-10-2013 14:13
Hera Tekstil, part of the Roteks Group, is a factory producing for H&M, Lindex and Inditex. In June 2011 the Teksif workers union started an organising campaign, which led to the recruitment of sufficient members for the trade union to register at the factory. Subsequently, workers were intimidated, forced to resign from the union and remaining unionised workers were dismissed. CCC communicated with key buyers and a Spanish trade union federation on follow up.
“The victory of our unionization campaign in Hera Tekstil of Roteks Group is a proof of what we can achieve if we cooperate. We are very grateful to CCC, FITEQA-CC.OO. and IndustriALL'.

Asalettin, Textile, Knitting and Clothing Workers’ Union of Turkey (Teksif)

The Clean Clothes Campaign communicated with key buyers, Inditex, in Spain, and Lindex and H&M, in Sweden and the Spanish trade union federation Fiteqa-CC.OO. about follow up action. The Spanish trade union was involved in this case because of their role in monitoring the International Framework Agreement signed between the Spanish Inditex and the global union IndustriALL. The Spanish union represented IndustiALL in several meetings.

Negotiations between the company and the union began, but after months of unsuccessful attempts of finding a negotiated solution to the conflict, in December 2011 Inditex announced conditional cancellation of current orders if a solution to the conflict was not found.

In January 2012, a meeting was organised with the participation of the management of Hera Tekstil, the Textile, Knitting and Clothing Workers’ Union of Turkey (Teksif) and the Spanish union Fiteqa CC.OO. (representing IndustriALL), where an agreement was reached. The management of Hera Tekstil stated that they accepted the legitimate activity of the union. This meeting was followed by a meeting between the management, Inditex and H&M, the union Teksif, and Spanish union Fiteqa CC.OO., on behalf of IndustriALL in which the buyers reiterated the need to respect fundamental labour rights and the establishment of positive relations between union and employer in order to guarantee current and future orders. Following this process a collective bargaining agreement has been signed between the factory management and the Teksif union.

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Workers are targeting the buyers



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What do companies and Multi Stakeholder Initiaves think of the CCC? *

“CCC has been one of the defining influences on code of conduct over the last 10 years. Codes of conduct have moved from being a fringe idea to a central plank of single CSR policy in the industry. A large part of that is because CCC internationally have been a champion for the role of brands taking action... and have placed and kept the issue in the public domain.”

“CCC have had impact by raising our awareness, triggering the development of our code of conduct and our subsequent mechanisms on monitoring, disclosure practises, decision to join MSI, training and follow-up.”

“If there is a critical situation in a factory that we have not become aware of ourselves, we do of course react immediately, if this is brought to our attention by CCC.”

“All activities raise awareness but do not change policies, urgent appeals have most impact to improve or change the way of working with a supplier or improve a situation if needed.”

* Quotes from internal report that assesses how Clean Clothes Campaign's labour rights corporate accountability work, including the Urgent Appeal system, has impacted corporate behavior between 1994 and 2010.

Pins Brown, 2010. Impact Assessment of Corporate Accountability Activities of Clean Clothes Campaign. Unpublished report on file.