Country reports November 2001 to April 2002

• Flemish part of Belgium
• Austria
• French speaking part of Belgium
• Netherlands
• Switzerland
• Bulgaria
• Portugal
• Italy
• Spain
• UK
• France

Flemish part of Belgium

CONSUMER ACTIONS

• Triumph action on January 11th (more)
• Action Day 26 January 2002
  • in 15 locations
  • 500 participants
  • several organisations participated, including the trade unions
  • we collected a couple of thousand signatures on symbolic fidelity cards
  • we visited 60 shops
  • excellent press coverage by all TV, radio, news papers
• Follow up
  • we discussed the follow up with the trade unions (not all yet)
  • Nike called to say they would send information to all shops that sell Nike products
  • New action next year?
• Exhibition sustainable development
  • Organised by community of Turnhout
  • The city had invited CCC to take part in the exhibition. 10 days before the opening they withdrew the invitation and said the whole idea was to be positive about sustainable development instead of attacking brands. They said they were afraid Nike or adidas would sew them
  • Since it was a matter for the local politicians and their administration this was later on discussed during the meeting of the city council and CCC was allowed to participate in the end
• Nike report 'we are not machine' (more)
  • Press coverage in newspapers and regional TV
  • Visit with delegation to Nike distribution center in Laakdal

• Regional seminar (Gent, 12 March)

• Seminar 'multistake holder management' Organised by LBC-NVK (trade union) with among others a representative of WE

• Preparation CD rom for students and tutors
• Follow up education packs for secundary school
  • Half 2002: News Letter + Evaluation sheet + 5 interviews with teachers
  • End of 2002: improving the education packs

• Brochure on sportswear

• Seminar social labelling (in December in Madrid)
• WECF conference (Women in Europe for a Common future) in Prague, March Objective: preparation of World Summit on Sustainable Development Participants: 100 women from environmental and women's organisations We wrote a statement on 8 different issues concerning sustainable development.
  We also agreed at the conference to use a statement to stop armed conflict as a petition to NGOs and women in general, and send this appeal and a letter to Kofi Anan and heads of state who will participate at the WSSD. We also discussed with some authors of the statement, to ask Kofi Annan to invite a few women from (recent) war areas, to present this appeal at the plenary of the WSSD. We have drafted a letter to Kofi Annan. We have also drafted a letter to NGOs to ask them to endorse/sign the appeal.

• Program on German TV- 17+24 April
• Program on Belgian TV- 15 April

• Consumer action
  • Sports event October 2002
  • T shirts manual: to make groups/schools/events who buy T-shirts for their volunteers etc aware of the working conditions
  • 'clean' uniforms for youth organisations
  • world championship football
• Companies
  • Follow up consumer action Jan 02
• Public authorities
  • public procurement
  • follow up social label

• for new staff members of the platform organisations

• Accessories used in CCC-Street actions like the iron bras against Triumph and some banners
• the output of art workshops dealing with the topic of social aspects in the productions-process
• the output of school art competitions dealing with the topic
• videos of CCC actions

• Numerous workshops in schools
• a new edition of the brochure "let´s wear fair" (in German) was published
• New Protest cards have been produced in cooperation with a college-class (16 years old pupils) in Salzburg (12.000 piece edition):
  • a) protest cards (without a specific address), with 2 different subjects which should be delivered at any shop where consumers bought a garment product, asking information on how the enterprise makes sure that in their production chain no exploitation takes part.
  • b)CCC free cards with 2 different subjects, which can be used as protest cards (where consumers have to write their own text) or post cards as well

• Consumers information: VKI: There was a scandal 2 years ago about tests they made on sportshoes (rating and ranking). Scandal that ranking of sportshoes gave good ratings to reebok and adidas, when CCC was criticizing them a lot. In the last month there was the jeans test, they made a rating/ranking of jeans, there was a dialoge before publishing the jeans test with CCC and CCC critisised the methodology before it was published. VKI ordered ranking done by German IMUG and IMUG did putt too much effort in getting information. When Austrian CCC found out they started dialogue and opinions on the test etc.

• Triumph International out of Burma
  At the middle of January we launched a new activity within the Triumph campaign: new postcards as a follow up of the answer of Triumph to the first card and, together with the Flemish CCC we did an original action in the garden of Triumph's Belgian representation near Brussels (invasion with 1.5 kilometers of bra's, baniers, mannequins, and around 50 people). Very good media coverage both in the French and Flemish parts of Belgium.
• World cup
  • We are preparing a leaflet and a media action.
  • We will use an adapted version of the video clip that was produced for Euro 2000 (this clip can be found at www.vetements-propres.be.tf
  • We will symbolic request the national public television to broadcast the clip as a normal advertisement on the 13 june (China - Turkey). No doubt they will refuse but we will use this to make a public case in front of the television mediator about the contradictions existing between the mission of the public service and the pressure made by the big advertisers like Nike Adidas and others sponsors of the World Championship.
  • We will broadcast the clip for free through 8 regional televisions channels (800 visions done during Euro 2000)
• Toys
  We are preparing a public campaign to be launched in October 2002, a publication (in French and Dutch) on the Toy industry focusing on Disney, a study day (11 October) and actioncards focussing on retailers (with a general request) and on a specific brand name (with a specific request).

• Public procurements
  • Media and lobby action towards Belgian MEPs before the vote on the new European directive (middle of January)
  • Following the issue through an interpellation of the Belgian government
  • A practical guide has been written to motivate and to present the legal possibilities for purchasing of ethical and fair products by municipalities. (this was translated in english by Chantal after the meeting)
• Social Label
  No news, a seminar is foreseen at the end of May. (note: postponed to September)

• In March 2002 the report on the purchasing of uniforms by the city of Amsterdam was presented to a representative of the city council. In the discussion that followed between producers, buyers, city council representatives and NGOs, 2 workwear companies announced that they were interested to join the Fair Wear Foundation. (more)
• More cities are interested in clean clothes communities and are send information.
• Continuation of the collaboration with organisations such as COS (local centre for international cooperation) and collaboration with networks and campaigns as the campaign started by COS called Wereldburgers.nl (citizens of the world).
• Workshops for local groups: in 7 places in the Netherlands there have been workshops for local groups on how to lobby local governments to accept a resolution on clean purchasing. These workshops were given by COS Utrecht.

• Meeting with Bodyfashion, as a follow up on the Triumph campaign in the Netherlands. In this meeting both the Clean Clothes Campaign and the FWF were able to present their work: One of the companies participating, Miss Etam was interested in FWF.
• Action on the Dam square in Amsterdam, an alternative opening ceremony of the Winter Olympic Games, to protest the torchbearers uniform being made in Burma. (more)

• The CCC in the Netherlands is organising activities around the World Championship 2002. Together with the trade union FNV and the India Committee of the Netherlands we are promoting the e-mail action, together with the Global March, towards the FIFA. Action leaflets with an action-card are send to all the amateur football clubs in the Netherlands, in total 400.000 cards. We are organising a relay race through the Netherlands in which local organisations and sport clubs are invited to participate, to run, swim, skate etc some kilometres, The relay race will go on for 48 hours and end at a large Festival in the Netherlands, called Festival Mundial, all in the weekend from 14 until 16 June. In the autumn a round table will be organised were companies, football associations, organisations and trade unions and politicians will be invited to. (more)
• The report on Indonesia has been presented at an exhibition of the Indonesian photos at the 8th of March. The release of the report has drawn some media attention; newspapers, internet news pages, and interview on national news radio.

• CCC Netherlands together with IUCN Netherlands, an environmental organisation, is organising 3 meetings with NGOs and lawyers to discuss possibilities of starting a court case in the Netherlands against a TNC. The meetings will be both on content as on practical issues such as costs and time frame etc.

• The FWF will present itself on the 22nd of May 2002. After a lot of debate it was decided that there will be no certificate but that companies can become a member of the FWF and can communicate that to the public.

• Dutch newsletter
• English newsletter (more)
• Gender leaflet, in Dutch and English

• CCC had a good media coverage in January 2002 when Triumph announced to leave Burma. At a high level meeting a few days later, Triumph said that they will remove the machines and that they will leave Burma by summer this year. They had a social plan for the 900 worker.
• CCC reached a partial success in the second point too: Triumph now has a social code of conduct as well, including the ILO core conventions. It covers all subcontractors and proposes an internal monitoring. But concerning wages, working hours and the principles of independent verification (such as transparency, participation, empowerment, complaint mechanism, etc.) the Triumph code is not complete. Therefore the public pressure on Triumph shall go on to take the necessary steps.

• The Swiss CCC is targeting FIFA President Sepp Blatter with a flyer including postcard and an e-mail campaign. We are going to print some 61'000 postcards in German and French. For that we were grateful to use some texts from the German World Championship Campaign.
• The E-Mail-Campaign will run on the homepage from Berne Declaration www.evb.ch and at least in German and French (maybe in English and Italian as well).

• Update on activities as of 18 September 2001: During the first half of September 2001, the pilot project director carried out the visits of three suppliers - one for each company (Mabrouc, Migros and Veillon) participating in the project of independent monitoring - located in Tirupur, Tamil Nadu, South India. The purpose of the visit was to monitor the respect of the Code of Conduct, as well as to test the feasibility of the system of independent monitoring as such. Previous to the visit of the factories themselves, two Indian research teams had carried out interviews of the workers of these factories, and gathered data on the (non-)respect of the provisions of the Code of Conduct adopted by each Swiss company - Codes that enshrine all rights defined in the Code of Conduct of the Clean Clothes Campaign. The local Indian partners had been identified during previous travels of the pilot project director to India.
• A follow-up visit, in which workers will again be involved, will took place in beginning 2002, in order to assess the degree of implementation of the corrective plan. The director will continue her activities and contacts in order to address the options and modalities of next step, namely the training of the workers in the rights enshrined in the Code of Conduct. As for the China side of the pilot project, local partners have been identified, and first visits on factory level in the region of Shanghai of the Chinese suppliers started just recently. The monitoring reports will be published in autumn 2002 and the pilot ends with this year.

• Some of the largest producers and traders of biologically produced cotton are connected with Switzerland. There is one wholesaler (Coop), who works since years in a very successful way with bio cotton. New projects are planned. The Swiss government is pushing these initiatives forward through giving funding. It is obvious for them to create together with max Havelaar a bio-fair trade-social label. There are the same NGOs active in the committee of Max Havelaar as in CCC. To prevent a controversial public argument, we will look how a collaboration would be fruitful.

• New schoolbook on fashion, brandnames and markets (in German only): "Mode, Marken, Märkte" reader for students (160 p.) and handbook for teatchers (70 p.).
• new brochure (24 p.) on CCC and the CCC-Code (in German only)
• Legal initiative for a Swiss commission for Human Rights comes to parliament

• promotion of a petition about transparency and Social quality in the textile sector (in Portugal and in the geopolitical South). The petition is still circulating.
• Information on our website: http://homepage.esoterica.pt/~cidac/
• Participation at the Barcelona CCC Forum
• Awareness raising sessions for teachers, students and NGOs workers
• Investigation of the Portuguese case. Portugal is still a big textile and shoes producer and child labour and homework is a national reality. But now, these companies are transferring the production to places like Morocco or Eastern Europe.

• creation of an activists network
• first thematic campaign called "We require transparency!"
• edition of a quarterly newsletter
• edition of didactical unit: "Our consumption decides!"
• regular edition of thematic reports
• investigation about Spanish and Portuguese companies in Morocco,
• second thematic campaign called "ALTER EURO 2004" (Euro cup of football in Portugal)
• participation in the European coordination activities

• To complete the Campaign's questionnaire on social commitment (the less positive aspect is that a few questions, for example those relating to information on the countries where its principal suppliers are based, were left blank.
• To send information to the Campaign regarding their commitment to social responsibility.
• Reply to the postcards they received.

• date : november 2001/january 2002
• action : Lobby on toy retailers (specialized or not) : " carnet de notes " and petition
• aim : adoption or improvement of their codes of conduct + implementation, opening a debate with them on the best way to inform consumers on the " social quality " of toys (and other products when they are not only toy's retailers) : social label...
• Results :
  • 93 local coordination " éthique sur l'étiquette " (total : 110) organized 176 actions in 100 cities : demonstrations of Santa Claus on strike, signature of the petition, meeting with directors of local hypermarkets, medias...
  • 180 000 signatures collected in 3 month, to be compared with our 3 last petitions campaigns (6 month campaigns each time) : 140 000 (1998) ; 80 000 (1997) ; 20 000 (1996).
  • At the end of the campaign : the presidents of the French federation of toy retailers and of the French federation of the toy industry + representatives of Fédération du Commerce et de la Distribution (FCD, federation of hypermarket companies), Carrefour and Intermarché has participated in a round table organized by the french CCC. The toy retailers and the french industry aggreed to open a dialogue with the French CCC.
• Next step : November 2002/2003 : 2nd part of our toy campaign.

First projects :

• Handbook for civil servants and members of town councils.
  Content :
  • Does the law on public procurements allows city to use social criterias ?
  • Is it possible to buy " ethical " products ?
• Fair trade products
  Other products : strategy to be defined. Our proposition : a joint initiative of the 200 towns asking the 3 or 4 main companies providing them with clothes, shoes and toys to give information on " social quality " of the product they sells + adoption of french CCC code of conduct + pilot projects/monitoring
  (Tourcoing or Besançon, 100 000 inhabitants each, spend each year about 150 000 euros for clothes and shoes)
  How can they participate in public awareness on ethical way of consumption (adults, schools...)
• Training (probably 17th of june) for civil servants and members of town councils, in collaboration with Cités Unies-France (association of french cities, départements and régions having international cooperation activities)
• A 3 years program should be adopted at the end of 2002 or beginning 2003

• workshop where companies are invited (17/05/02) : aim : improve involvement of NGO's and trade union in France and in producing countries (negociation of code of conduct, participation of the workers in the implementation of code of conduct...)
• follow up of contacts with trade union and NGO's in Madagascar and Bulgaria