Police violence and intimidation

published 03-10-2013 14:16, last modified 10-10-2013 14:15
In July 2012 more than 2,000 workers from the Panarub Dwikarya factory, part of the Panarub Group, in Tangerang went on strike to protest against the lack of implementation of the provincial minimum wage, the denial of freedom of association and the bad working conditions at the workplace. They were confronted with police violence, intimidation and the unfair dismissal of 1300 workers that joined the strike. After intervention, buying brands adidas and Mizuno asked for an end to the violations.

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The workers on strike
The Clean Clothes Campaign (CCC) supported the call of the PlayFair alliance to ensure freedom of association and the reinstatement of the union members.

As a member of PlayFair, CCC sent a letter to the factory management, to adidas and to the Mizuno corporation urging them to take action to stop the labour rights violations. Adidas replied the same day. Mizuno entered into a email dialogue with both the factory management and the GSBI union. So far there has been no meeting between the brands and the union.

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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.