Portside

The PayUp campaign has clawed back $22 billion from apparel companies owed to factories and workers, and they’re just getting started.

The PayUp campaign has clawed back $22 billion from apparel companies owed to factories and workers, and they’re just getting started.

The fast-fashion industry has long been known for exploitative practices, which have continued during the pandemic, despite the health risk to garment workers. “Fashion masks,” substitute actual protection for mere simulation.

While fashion designers and brands continue to grab headlines and praise for their “heroism,” garment workers are fundraising for basic needs.

How can a global garment value chain that relies on the systemic devaluation of female labour be expected to fulfil promises of empowerment for women informal workers? It can’t. Here’s why.

In collaboration with the Garment Worker Center and UCLA Occupational Safety and Health (UCLA LOSH), the UCLA Labor Center just released Dirty Threads, Dangerous Factories: Health and Safety in Los Angeles’ Fashion Industry. The study finds that fast fashion, an approach that moves garments from design to shelf at an accelerated pace, leads to dangerous working conditions for garment workers.

For millions of American workers across the country, the cool air of the fall season promises to bring relief from intense heat on the job. In California, however, the persistent autumn heat wave brings along with it dangerous wildfires and also dangerous working conditions.

International and European trade union bodies are calling on the European Union to bolster action on workers’ rights and safety in Bangladesh’s garment industry. The Bangladesh government has failed to implement vital labour law reforms, and a compensation fund for victims of the Rana Plaza disaster still remains US$ 9 million short of the target.