Sweatshops

Eradicating Sweatshops
Over the past decade, the campaign to eradicate sweatshops has steadily grown. Anti-sweatshop groups have sprouted on dozens of college campuses. Trade unions, religious institutions, and other concerned investors have engaged numerous companies through dialogue and shareholder resolutions. Most consumers now say that they willing to pay more to avoid goods made in sweatshops.

  • The anti-sweatshop movement has focused mainly on factory workers making apparel, footwear and toys. But activists are increasingly expanding their attention to agricultural workers ranging from coffee growers in Latin America and Asia to farm workers in California and Florida.Today, the anti-sweatshop movement makes three principal demands of companies and their suppliers:
    • Pay a “living wage” - a wage that allows workers to meet their family’s basic needs while retaining some discretionary income,
    • Respect the rights of their workers to organize and engage in collective bargaining, and
    • Allow independent monitoring to verify compliance with labor standards.

    What We’re Doing About This Issue

    How We Screen
    Sweatshops are a pervasive problem. No large company can guarantee that none of their products are made in sweatshops.

    Trillium Asset Management Corporation (”Trillium”) seeks investment in companies that are proactive and genuine in addressing the problem of sweatshops. We seek those companies that set comprehensive workplace standards for their suppliers and ensure that those standards are monitored effectively and independently. We favor companies that work with Verite or local religious, labor and community organizations to monitor their suppliers.

    Where a company is found to be using a factory that abuses its workers, we expect the company to investigate the situation promptly and thoroughly. We favor companies that use their influence as buyers to ensure that suppliers respect worker rights, pay fair wages, and improve workplace conditions.

    Trillium  cannot build a portfolio free of companies with any connection to sweatshops. However, we do seek to invest in companies that are actively tackling this problem and respond well to our concerns as shareholders.

    Shareholder Advocacy
    For nearly a decade, Trillium has used shareholder pressure to stop sweatshops.

    In December 1992, “Dateline NBC” showed children in Bangladesh making Wal-Mart label shirts. Days later, Trillium filed the first shareholder resolution by a social investment firm on the issue of sweatshops. The resolution asked Wal-Mart to adopt a comprehensive code of conduct for the factories that made its products.

    After three months of intensive dialogue with Trillium, Wal-Mart introduced what, at the time, was the most extensive workplace standards ever adopted by a major retailer. However, in recent years, Wal-Mart’s policy and practices have been eclipsed by initiatives by other major retailers. Trillium has since joined other concerned investors in pressing Wal-Mart to start a program of independent monitoring of its suppliers.

    Trillium works closely with members of the Interfaith Center on Corporate Responsibility (ICCR) and other social investment firms to file resolutions and conduct dialogues with retailers and brand name goods manufacturers. Trillium has joined ICCR members and other concerned investors in engaging Federated Department Stores, Target, Timberland, Wal-Mart, and Walt Disney.

    At the May 2001 “Empowering Democracy” conference, we met representatives of the Coalition of Immokalee Workers who made a powerful presentation on the plight of tomato pickers in Immokalee, Florida, and the Coalition campaign to press Taco Bell to ensure that the pickers receive a sustainable living wage.

    Trillium took the initiative to draft a letter from religious investors and social investment firms to Taco Bell. In the letter dated November 2001, the investors urged Tricon, the parent company of Taco Bell, to:

    Open a dialogue with the growers, the tomato pickers, and investors;

    • Pay a fractionally higher price for its tomatoes with the total increase passed on to the tomato workers in the form of higher wages;
    • Draft a code of conduct for Tricon’s tomato suppliers that includes provisions requiring safe and healthy work conditions, the payment of a sustainable living wage, and respect for the right to organize.
    • When this letter also went unanswered, Trillium joined with the Center for Reflection, Education and Action and the United Church of Christ Pension Board in filing a shareholder resolution at Tricon.

    Selective Purchasing Laws

    Building on our experience with the Massachusetts Burma Law, Trillium has advised citizens around the country on how to enact municipal and state laws to combat sweatshops. Trillium recently assisted the Bangor Clean Clothes Campaign in exploring ways in which a newly established Maine commission could promote ethical investment and purchasing by the Maine state government.

    Anti-Sweatshop Initiatives

    Trillium also supports two anti-sweatshop initiatives.

    SA8000 is a workplace code of conduct designed to be independently monitored through an audit process. It is a project of Social Accountability International (SAI), formerly the Council on Economic Priorities Accreditation Agency (CEPAA). Since the inception of SA8000, Trillium has participated in its development as a member of SAI’ s advisory board.

    Trillium has also endorsed the US Business Principles for Human Rights of Workers in China pioneered by Global Exchange and the International Labor Rights Fund.


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