A brief report of the CCC international forum – Turkey, November 2010

Background of Clean Clothes Campaign

The Clean Clothes Campaign has been involved in campaigning for garment workers’ rights for many years. Their work has historically been about fighting the injustices confronting workers in the garment sector. This year CCC organised the International Forum, the aim of which was to gather together participants from organisations that are connected to the CCC, so that they could engage issues and share their experiences.

The International Forum

The IF was held in Turkey from the 23rd till the 26th of November 2010. There were more than 200 participants, predominantly from Asia then Europe, the Americas and Africa. The structure of the IF was of interest: it was designed from the onset to be participatory in the way that topics were chosen and how activities were structured. Participants long before the workshop suggested their areas of interest and signed up to others that they wanted to participate in.

Structure

The forum’s activities were met with much excitement, in the workshops and the small group gathering there was much enthusiasm in tackling issues. The plenary was utilised to share broadly on the CCC structural and strategic direction. In addition a smaller group was tasked with the responsibility of gathering at the end of each day to bring together feedback from the day’s experiences and explore issues arising out of these in relation to the future. Maggie and June from Women Working Worldwide participated in this group. The inputs were very informative and in a sense tended to provide a rounded overview of the day.

Gender Working Group & Other Workshops

In addition to this group, the gender working group of the CCC met to discuss the different workshops which had a gender focus, the aim was to ensure that the members of the gender group participated as much as possible in these activities. Some feedback was also organised on progress. June has been a member of the group and took part in these meetings.

The last set of activities which made the success of the International Forum were the variety of workshops. June’s choices focussed on organising, productivity and the ITGLWF workshop on their work with large participation of trade unions. These choices were directly linking to the areas of work that Women Working Worldwide is involved in.

The Value of an International Forum

Our work supporting women workers within supply chains, means working collaboratively with trade unions. We therefore need to stay connected with the developments within the labour movement. In addition it is important to be up to date on the issues and challenges that the trade unions are grappling with. Likewise the sessions on organising and gender provided numerous accounts by participants on what workers were up against.

Some of the Topics for Discussion

The presentation included stories of young women workers in Cambodia, who because of bad conditions and low pay and general neglect in terms of representation, found themselves forced to organise into a women’s trade union and then struggling for changes.

The workshops were all important in their own way. Thabo (from ITGLWF) and June facilitated two workshops, one on organising and the other on sharing the situation in the Textile and Garment sectors for workers in the Sub-Saharan Africa. The workshops were an eye opener. The organising workshop was attended mainly by colleagues from Cambodia and Turkey. We all shared experiences in organising demonstrating a tremendous courage and determination by women in both countries. Not only did they speak of challenges in organising but growth and successes. Women were beginning to make inroads and were winning some rights. In Turkey it was also of great interest that women in their homes were organising and engage the city local authorities on their civil rights, and were gaining respect and being listen to.

The workshop sharing experiences in Sub-Saharan Africa was attended by a larger group – of importance was their concern about the situation in Africa. The discussion was very much about getting in-depth understanding of the situation in Africa.

The Issue of Productivity Agreements

Last year, Women Working Worldwide commissioned Liz Parker to make a study of the developments around productivity initiatives.  The workshop on this subject generated a number of interesting issues after the presentation. The presentation by Liz Parker went through the background and information that had been gathered from different groups, individuals and companies who emphasised the gains that result from these processes – not just for themselves but for workers as well. Participants with experiences of working within these initiatives shared their take and frustrations with the processes. They talked about how pressured work was – workers putting pressure on each other; others stating that due to this pressure it was difficult to conduct their responsibilities as union representatives. There were others focussing on the need for in-depth understanding of what was at stake, so that workers and unions can strategise about how to engage and to make sure that whatever gains were spoken about in the presentation represented authentic gains for workers. Whilst there were no conclusive ideas on how to continue with this work, participants thought that there was usefulness in the discussions and sharing.

Briefing on Future Work with Women Working Worldwide

June organised a briefing with other persons from Asia and Africa to explore future possibilities for collaborative work with Women Working Worldwide. Regarding Asia, June and Maggie met primarily with Khorshed Alam to explore further work in Bangladesh. In India we were introduced to SAVE representatives present, since we felt it is a good idea to meet up with future colleagues and we hope to be working with them soon. There were other groups that we met who wanted to chat in general.

Meeting with African Colleagues

June met with the colleagues from Africa. It had been hoped that there were going to be more participants but unfortunately Madagascar and Uganda were not successful in obtaining Visas. The hope had been we would have had an opportunity with ITGLWF-Africa to discuss Africa and issues of Networking. With regards to Madagascar this would have been an opportunity to share and get an update on the situation on the ground – but more important it would have provided a chance to explore future collaborative work.

Meetings were held with Lesotho – Matsepo and SACTWUs Beauty sharing information on the companies. During the last year a number of companies from South Africa were opening operations in Lesotho. The idea was to connect for the purpose of enabling organisation. The last discussion was related to future possible collaboration on women workers support in Lesotho. Useful information on the possibility was shared.

“We are not alone”

In all the International Forum was very important, it generated a lot of information as well as energy and the good sense that colleagues get when they are together that “we are not alone”.

For more information, see the December 2010 issue of Threads, the CCC’s newsletter, which you can access on google docs – details here: http://www.cleanclothes.org/resources/ccc/newsletter/threads-30