No Place to Hide: The ‘Urgent Appeal' as an Enforcing Mechanism in the International Garment Sector.
The research approach is qualitative, based on a detailed review of documentary evidence for a three year period (2012-2014 inclusive) of CCC’s urgent appeals, along with interview data from key actors working within or alongside the CCC UA system.
The mass manufacture of garments is infamous for its poor working conditions and abysmal safety record in a range of locations all over the world. Freedom of association comes under concerted attack in a range of settings, health and safety is poor, and systems of monitoring and auditing of public and private regulation is deeply flawed, in the context of powerful local business lobbies, weak states and weak collective organisation. In this context, the CCC UA system allows workers’ organisations to make an urgent appeal to the CCC network for assistance in response to a situation they are facing at the local level. This could range, for example, from the unlawful imprisonment of a union leader, to a large scale disaster involving loss of life. If the appeal for urgent assistance is taken up, the CCC network mobilises and campaigns around the issue. In this activity, the CCC will often work alongside (and interact closely with) other industrial relations actors such as national unions, global unions, the European Union (EU) and the International Labour Organisation (ILO). Yet the CCC has a very distinct, separate identity and ethos as a civil society network. In particular, the CCC UA system differs from similar appeal systems operating under the auspices of multi-stakeholder initiatives, where employer interests also have to be taken into account. By virtue of its unpredictability and essential independence, the CCC UA system has the potential to act as a powerful irritant in publicising employer transgressions in the global garment sector.
The paper will examine the types of cases taken up by the UA system, analyse outcomes and consider whether the UA system, as an element of workers’ repertoire of action and a method of enforcement of private and public regulation, has the potential to influence industrial relations more broadly by affecting employer’ and Brands’ calculation of the risk of failing to do so. Thus, the question of whether the CCC UA system has the potential to exert influence on industrial relations in the supply chain beyond the outcome of an individual case, will be posed.