Major Shoe and Clothing Companies Publish Rights
Audits of Their Overseas Factories on the Internet
LCHR Welcomes Public Reports and Commends Seven
Companies for the Milestone in Corporate Social Responsibility
NEW YORK - June 4 - The Fair Labor Association released
today, on the internet, the results of independent and systematic
audits of 50 factories that produce goods made for seven major shoe
and clothing companies - adidas-Salomon, Eddie Bauer, Levi Strauss
& Co., Liz Claiborne Inc., Nike, Phillips-Van Heusen and Reebok
International.
The audits - which are reported in the form of “tracking
charts” - provide a detailed account of workers’
rights conditions in factories - and a narrative about what
companies are doing to remedy the violations. The charts are available
www.fairlabor.org.
“This type of thorough and systematic disclosure is a major
step in improving the ability of workers, advocates and the public
to hold global corporations to their legal and moral obligation to
protect the rights of workers,” said Michael Posner, the Executive
Director of the Lawyers Committee for Human Rights and a board member
of the FLA. The Lawyers Committee led the effort within the FLA for
greater public disclosure of the results of independent monitoring.
The Fair Labor Association is a three-year-old organizations made
up of apparel and athletic footwear companies; human rights, labor
rights and consumer organizations; and university representatives.
The FLA evolved out of the Apparel Industry Partnership which was
initiated by President Clinton in 1996; its mission is to address
workers’ rights issues in the U.S. and abroad.
Companies that participate in the FLA have agreed to:
- Adopt and adhere to an industry-wide code
of conduct. The FLA Code of Conduct is available at: www.fairlabor.org/all/code/index.html.
- Undertake an extensive program of internal
monitoring of all factories in their global supply chain.
- Allow independent external monitoring of
a representative sample of those factories by monitors who have
been selected by and work for the FLA.
- Undertake remedial actions when violations
of the code of conduct are found.
The FLA also today released its first public annual report, which
provides information on the compliance programs that have been put
in place by the seven companies that have completed their first year
of full participation in the FLA . The annual report outlines the
findings and remediation efforts during the first year under each
of the nine provisions of the FLA Code of Conduct.
While the step the FLA takes today represents a milestone in the area
of workers rights protection, the Lawyers Committee believes there
is still much work to be done to promote and enforce corporate accountability
for human rights.
“This first round of audits shows that there is much room for
improvement at all of these companies and in all of these factories,”
said Posner. “These companies deserve credit for making this
information available to the public. Their willingness to do so now
sets out a challenge to the rest of the industry.”
The FLA can be reached at: 202-898-1000. Auret van Heerden is
the Executive Director.
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