**Garment workers continue to experience reduced work and layoffs: **

A decline in orders has led to factory closures and job losses.

- Türkiye: 15,000 companies shut down in early 2024, with over 200,000 textile workers losing jobs in the previous year. 
- Indonesia: Nearly 50,000 layoffs in the first half of 2024. 
- Portugal: 11,000 workers faced layoffs, contract suspensions, or reduced hours. 
- Philippines: Over 5,100 garment workers lost jobs or were forced on leave. 
- Kenya: 1,900 redundancies in a single EPZ as orders dropped. 

Demand-side triggers: weak demand and global instability in orders:

The global fashion industry faces instability in orders due to economic recession, inflation, rising material and energy costs, and geopolitical disruptions.

- Declining imports: Between mid-2023 and early 2024, apparel imports dropped 7% in the US and 5.2% in the EU.  
- Brands record profits: Despite industry challenges, major brands like Inditex (€5.4 billion net profit, +30%) and Fast Retailing (JPY ¥530 billion operating profit, +5.8%) saw booming bottom lines in 2024.  

Supply-side triggers: escalating costs and pressures:

Economic, political, and climate challenges are driving order volatility in apparel sourcing countries.

- Inflation: Inflation in sourcing countries like Turkey and Portugal have significantly increased production costs.  
- Rise in minimum wages: Minimum wages rose 40-48% in Portugal and Romania (2022-2024), with Turkey doubling wages to 17,002 liras in 2024. 
- Soaring gas and electricity prices: Soaring gas and electricity prices have increased operational expenses in places like Turkey and Bangladesh.  
- Climate events: Typhoons in Vietnam and floods in Bangladesh, further disrupted production. 

**Sourcing strategies: brands’ cost-driven choices in dealing with demand and supply side triggers **

Brands are changing sourcing countries.

- Türkiye: Brands shifted their orders to countries with lower labor costs, such as Bangladesh or Egypt, where wages are approximately 75% lower than in Turkey.  Brands are seeking lower costs amid high inflation and declining export orders. 
- Romania: Luxury brand suppliers shut down after wage hikes, shifting orders to cheaper hubs like Tunisia and Morocco. 
- Leicester, UK: Rising costs and scrutiny over labour practices led brands to exit, moving production to Morocco, Turkey, and Tunisia.  
- Bangladesh: Political instability and order cancellations have resulted in buyers redirecting orders to India, Cambodia, and Pakistan. 

SOURCE: Business & Human Rights Resource Centre

This time last week I was at the ‘War in Gaza’ panel at a conference held by the Centre For Investigative Journalism.

I am still haunted by the words of Palestinian journalist Abu Bakr Bashir: ‘All the interviews you do now are with victims. Sometimes you speak to people trapped under rubble who have posted their phone number online. Maybe you want the interview but that phone battery is their lifeline.’

I cannot imagine the strain of doing an interview like this once, let alone every day. If the phone dies, the people holding it may die, so you hang up and maybe never know what happened to them.

Under threat of death Abu Bakr Bashir had to leave Palestine and now writes for NPR and The New York Times. You can also find him on AlQahera news TV.

So many journalists have been killed in Gaza and the ones who are left are refugees themselves. ‘It’s so dangerous, you often can’t even ask your colleagues to walk to the next tent to confirm things - they are all now in tents,’ Abu Bakr Bashir told us.

We also heard from Sherif Mansour who was the former Middle East and North Africa Program Coordinator at the Committee to Protect Journalists. He has had to step back from the devastating work of counting the numbers of journalists killed in the Israeli invasion of Gaza.

He told us how 49.5% of all journalists killed worldwide are in one region: The Middle East.

The Committee to Protect Journalists says 137 journalists and media workers have so far been killed in Israel and occupied Palestine during this conflict.

‘Palestinian journalists did not choose to be there,’ said Sherif Mansour. ‘Their deaths are a record of impunity by Israel - there is no accountability for this crime.’

Journalists must be able to go where it dangerous. The reporting must be done, the stories of Palestinians must heard.

I looked around the room, packed full of journalists many of whom I knew and tried to imagine what it would be like to lose 137 of these bright and brilliant story tellers who work hard to uncover injustice.

It’s an unimaginable loss and yet when it comes to Palestine and the death of 137 Palestinian journalists and media workers, as Sherif Mansour says, the international media has ‘showed complicity and bias’ in the face of the deaths of so many of our colleagues. ‘We need a reckoning in international media.’ he said. ‘We need to confront racism.’

As of 21st November 2024:

137 journalists and media workers were confirmed killed: 129 Palestinian, two Israeli, and six Lebanese.
47 journalists were reported injured
2 journalists were reported missing
74 journalists were reported arrested.
Multiple assaults, threats, cyberattacks, censorship, and killings of family members.

The Committee to Protect Journalists is also investigating numerous unconfirmed reports of other journalists being killed, missing, detained, hurt, or threatened, and of damage to media offices and journalists’ homes.

More here: https://cpj.org/2024/11/journalist-casualties-in-the-israel-gaza-conflict/

This week Mike Jeffries, the former longtime CEO of Abercrombie & Fitch, along with associates Matthew Smith and James Jacobson, were arrested in connection with a federal sex-trafficking and interstate prostitution case.

According to prosecutors, Jeffries, Smith, and Jacobson convinced young men that attending their sex events could yield modeling opportunities with Abercrombie or otherwise benefit their careers.

“To anyone who thinks they can exploit and coerce others by using the so-called ‘casting couch’ system, this case should serve as a warning: prepare to trade that couch for a bed in federal prison,” said Breon Peace, US Attorney for the Eastern District of New York. “The message from today’s prosecution is clear: Sexually exploiting vulnerable individuals is a crime, and doing so by dangling dreams of a future in fashion or modeling or any other business is no different.”

The charges come one year after Model Alliance worker council member and former model Barrett Pall shared his experience of abuse by Jeffries and his associates with the BBC, appearing in the documentary The Abercrombie Guys: The Dark Side of Cool. Last year, with the support of the Model Alliance, Pall and other survivors filed a class action lawsuit against their abusers, including Abercrombie & Fitch. The lawsuit was filed under the New York State Adult Survivors Act, a law that the Model Alliance helped to champion to give survivors of sexual abuse a pathway to justice.

The highly aspirational nature of the modeling industry, coupled with the industry’s lack of regulation, creates a breeding ground for abuse. Th Model Alliance has worked to introduce and pass the Fashion Workers Act, which, once signed into law, will establish long overdue labour protections for models and create an environment of accountability in New York’s fashion industry. The Model Alliance urges Governor Hochul to sign the bill into law as soon as possible to prevent such abuse from happening in the future.

The Model Alliance runs a free and discreet support line, MA Support.

New York Times article here.

TRANSPARENCY: THIS IS A REJIGGED MODEL ALLIANCE PRESS RELEASE

One year on from a violent crackdown by state actors and employers against Bangladeshi garment workers protesting for higher wages, 40,000 workers remain at risk of arrest due to repressive legal charges brought against them in the form of blank arrest warrants.

Fashion brands including H&M and Zara are refusing to protect workers’ basic rights in Bangladesh so an international campaign has launched, condemning the inaction of fashion brands and calling for 36 legal cases against worker groups and protesters to be dropped.

“Brands such as H&M and Zara have a responsibility to ensure that complaints against unnamed protesters cannot be used to intimidate workers and their representatives," says Anne Bienias, a lead campaigner for the Clean Clothes Campaign. “The refusal of brands to support union-backed wage demands despite extreme poverty, and their lack of willingness to get these cases dropped, is illustrative of who profits from the status quo and who doesn’t. Brands clearly do.”

The Clean Clothes Campaign has linked 45 fashion brands to suppliers who filed charges in 36 cases against garment workers in Bangladesh and have been pushing these brands to ensure the cases are dropped for the past year. While some brands have taken initial steps to ensure suppliers drop false allegations, a year on, all brands and suppliers have failed to follow through and not a single case has been cleared.

The Clean Clothes Campaign’s tracker shows which brands are linked to the outstanding warrants - including H&M, Zara, Next, Matalan, Levi’s, Bestseller and more. Campaigners hope this tool will shed light on the complicity of the industry and ensure brands follow through with suppliers to ensure charges are fully dropped.

The launch of this new coordinated effort to apply pressure on brands comes on the anniversary of last year’s widespread wage protests in Bangladesh. Police and the military cracked down on protesting workers who showed their dissatisfaction over the disappointing outcome of the long-awaited minimum wage negotiations. As a result of the violent police response against protesters, 4 workers lost their lives, hundreds were severely injured, and 131 were arrested.

The 36 largely baseless criminal cases are held against 40,000 ‘unnamed individuals’. Labour representatives are warning these blank arrest warrants could be used against any workers who raise concerns with factory bosses, or as a tool for settling personal or political grievances.

“In an industry where union repression is rife, getting the cases dropped is just a first but very necessary step on the way to an industry in which workers can live a decent life off their wages and in which barriers to freedom of association are taken down,” says Kalpona Akter, president of the Bangladesh Garment & Industrial Workers Federation. “We won’t live in fear. We are calling for living wages that support our families.”

Workers and trade unions in Bangladesh have put forward a list of priorities to the interim government led by Dr Yunus, which prominently includes the request to issue an executive order to have all the politically motivated legal charges being brought against workers for participation in the wage protests in 2023 dropped at once. Unions are encouraging the brands to support this ask.

TRANSPARENCY: THIS IS A REJIGGED CLEAN CLOTHES CAMPAIGN PRESS RELEASE.

Demonstration in London on Saturday: March to Downing Street to call for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza and Lebanon and for an end to arms sales to Israel. The war has been raging for almost a year, with over 40,000 Palestinians killed and many more wounded, trapped under rubble, or displaced from their homes.

Last night, Israel escalated its regional assault with airstrikes on Gaza, Syria, Yemen, and a ground invasion of Lebanon, where over a million people have already been forced to flee. The only path to lasting peace in the region—and the safe return of Israeli hostages still held in Gaza—is through a diplomatic solution and an immediate ceasefire.

Date: Saturday 5th October Time: Assemble 12pm Location: Russell Square (Picadilly Line)

Source: Peace and Justice Project

Hi :) I am typing this on my micro.blog site and when I click post, it will appear on my wandering.shop mastodon profile, which is pretty cool. So far I am not sure precisely how I will use micro.blog but the idea of only having to type once before posting to multiple accounts is very attractive as it takes a lot of time to update all my different profiles.