Levi Strauss & Co, the Children’s Place, and Kontoor Brands sign “legally-binding WSR agreement…" BREAKING: WSR marches on! Groundbreaking human rights model puts down roots on a third continent with garment workers’ victory in Lesotho… Representatives from women’s organizations and unions based in Lesotho gather for a photo with representatives of the CIW, the Fair Food Standards Council, Workers Rights Consortium and the Solidarity Center in Immokalee to commemorate a two-day exchange in November of last year to study the Worker-driven Social Responsibility (WSR) model and the CIW’s Fair Food Program. The visitors returned to Lesotho to negotiate a groundbreaking WSR agreement – announced just this week – to fight sexual harassment and gender-based violence in the garment industry there. Levi Strauss & Co, the Children’s Place, and Kontoor Brands sign “legally-binding WSR agreement… to address long-standing issues of sexual harassment and gender-based violence in the[ir] Lesotho-based suppliers”; New Lesotho program “modeled after the Fair Food Program’s approach to combating sexual harassment and… will feature an independent complaint body similar to the Fair Food Standards Council”; Latest victory demonstrates power of collaboration through burgeoning WSR Network to spread real, worker-led human rights protections in global supply chains! First, the facts. Here’s an excerpt from a statement on the landmark agreement from Workers Rights Consortium (WRC), one of several US-based organizations that facilitated the years-long process that led to the agreement in Lesotho (and one of the founding members of the WSR Network): Last Thursday marked the announcement of a set of landmark agreements among leading apparel brands, a coalition of labor unions and women’s rights advocates, and a major apparel supplier to combat gender-based violence and harassment in Lesotho’s garment sector. These enforceable agreements—with Levi Strauss & Co., The Children’s Place, and Kontoor Brands—link each of the brands’ ongoing business with the supplier, Nien Hsing Textile Co., to the supplier’s acceptance of and cooperation with a worker-led program to eliminate sexual harassment and abuse. The program features an independent complaint investigation body with the power to direct punishment of abusive managers and supervisors, up to and including dismissal. This program arises from years of worker organizing at Nien Hsing by the Independent Democratic Union of Lesotho (IDUL), United Textile Employees (UNITE), the National Clothing Textile and Allied Workers Union—and from years of women’s rights advocacy by the Federation of Women Lawyers in Lesotho and Women (FIDA) and Law in Southern African Research and Education Trust-Lesotho (WLSA). Read more >> It is an inspiring story of how workers in an industry long distinguished for extreme exploitation found a way to harness the purchasing power of some of the most powerful brands in the apparel industry to monitor and enforce their own rights — in particular the right to work free of sexual harassment and assault — in the workplace. You can read more about that story in the New York Times (“Report: Levi’s, Wrangler, Lee Seamstresses Harassed, Abused”) and in the Guardian of London (“Bosses force female workers making jeans for Levis and Wrangler into sex”). Behind every great story is a backstory… But the backstory of how apparel factories in Lesotho became the very latest front in the expansion of the WSR model – an all-too-rare success story of collaboration among multiple organizations across borders and across industries to advance workers’ fundamental human rights – is quite interesting in its own right. Members of the CIW Worker-to-Worker Education Team demonstrate the use of Popular Education techniques employed in the Fair Food Program for conveying the right to work free of sexual harassment to workers on FFP farms during last year’s visit to Immokalee by a delegation of representatives from the women’s organizations and unions that signed last week’s groundbreaking agreement. Worker education is a critical element in any WSR agreement, as workers must have a clear understanding of their rights in order to play their role as the front line monitors of those rights that ensures compliance with human rights standards and, ultimately, prevention of longstanding abuses. The WRC, which exposed the abuses and worked with an international coalition that supported the workers in Lesotho throughout the process that resulted in the agreement, released a second statement on the history that led up to last week’s announcement. The statement set out to “explain the roles of the organizations that have contributed to this breakthrough; contrast the new binding agreements and the program they will create with voluntary industry labor codes that consistently fail to protect workers; and provide comment on several key aspects of the agreement and their significance...” Get the full backstory on the groundbreaking agreement in Lesotho over at the CIW website! Coalition of Immokalee Workers (239) 657 8311 | [email protected] | www.ciw-online.org Connect with us ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ A copy of the CIW's official registration and financial information may be obtained from the Florida Division of Consumer Services by calling toll-free 1-800-HELP-FLA (435-7352). Registration does not imply endorsement, approval, or recommendation by the state. The website for the Florida Division of Consumer Services is [link removed] Coalition of Immokalee Workers | 110 S 2nd St, Immokalee, FL 34142 Unsubscribe [email protected] About Constant Contact Sent by [email protected] in collaboration with Try email marketing for free today!