T-Shirt Designers – Clean up your act with FairWear!

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In case you are a t-shirt designer, run a t-shirt store or label, or indeed create or sell any kind of clothing, you might be interested in the Fairwear Foundation who focus on ensuring that the garment industry finally cleans up its act and directly influences the rights of workers for all their suppliers and manufacturers. If you regularly order t-shirts from international suppliers and manufacturers it maybe worth reading on and seeing what pressure you can apply!

Since the late 90’s The Netherlands have been campaigning for ‘clean clothes’, i.e clothing created ethically and with fair workers’ rights no matter the source. FWF regularly inspect source suppliers across the world, including human rights’ hotspots such as India, Indonesia and Romania.

In 2003 FWF presented itself to the public and the garment industry with the message: “we are ready for it” and then started recruiting companies who were willing to subscribe to the Code of Labour Practices. FWF is an independent non-profit foundation. Their independence is guaranteed by a board in which leading organisations have a seat. These are companies from the garment industry such as Modint, Mitex, trade unions, reps from the Clean Clothes Campaign and charities such a Oxfam. All of the organisations are in one way or another involved in labour in the garment production.

FWF was set up in the Netherlands. At present FWF has members from the following countries: Belgium, Denmark, Germany, England, the Netherlands, Sweden and Switzerland. The majority of companies that are affiliated to FWF are Dutch. However the aim is that FWF officially becomes international. When this happens, international stakeholders will also be present on the Board and the Committee of Experts.

Eventually FWF are aiming to provide an alternative to the Fair Trade logo, the more the better I’d say:-

FWF aims for a collaboration with similar organisations that work towards an improvement of labour conditions through a Code of Labour Practices.

In 2003 six international front runners started a project called Joint Initiative on Corporate Accountability and Workers’ Rights (JoIn). The objective of this collaboration is to learn from one another, to develop joint methods and to investigate possibilities for further collaboration.

The following six organisations make up JoIn:

* Ethical Trading Initiative (ETI)
* Fair Wear Foundation (FWF)
* Clean Clothes Campaign (CCC)
* Fair Labor Association (FLA)
* Worker Rights Consortium (WRC)
* Social Accountability International (SAI)

Most people in the fashion industry have very little influence on an individual basis, but perhaps collectively, with enough effort the t-shirt community (and beyond) may be able to change the future for the better. I’d urge you to visit the links shown above and see how your company can help further the cause of worker’s rights and human rights in the world of fashion.

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