Outlines the Clean Clothes Campaign’s urgent appeals system and provides some examples of recent urgent appeals undertaken by the CCC

Clean Clothes Campaign

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Outlines the Clean Clothes Campaign’s urgent appeals system and provides some examples of recent urgent appeals undertaken by the CCC.CCC_Urgent_Appeals_System.pdf: 74 downloads, before Oct. 1, 2020

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The Clean Clothes Urgent Appeal System

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THE CLEAN CLOTHES 
URGENT APPEALS 
SYSTEM
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THE CLEAN CLOTHES CAMPAIGN (CCC) IS A GLOBAL COALITION  
OF NGOS AND TRADE UNIONS THAT WORK TOGETHER TO PUSH  
FOR BETTER WORKING CONDITIONS IN THE GARMENT INDUSTRY  
AND FOR THE EMPOWERMENT OF GARMENT WORKERS.  
IN THE CONTEXT OF THIS WORK, THE CCC IS COMMITTED  
TO CARRYING OUT DIRECT SOLIDARITY ACTION TO SUPPORT  
GARMENT WORKERS IN THEIR STRUGGLE TO SEE THAT THEIR  
RIGHTS ARE RESPECTED.
D eveloping and circulating appeals for urgent action (called “urgent appeals” for short) is one way that the CCC supports garment 
workers in speciﬁc cases where their rights have been 
violated. A CCC urgent appeal contains a request 
from workers or their organizations that people take 
action (ex. write a letter of protest to a factory owner) 
to demonstrate support for workers’ demands in a 
situation where their rights are not being respected. 
The CCC frequently receives appeals from workers 
producing garments and sports shoes for companies 
that are part of the international supply chains of 
major multinational brand name companies. These 
brand name companies are vulnerable to public 
opinion regarding conditions at their suppliers, 
therefore concern expressed by activists and the 
public can have an impact on the action such 
companies take in relation to these cases. In recent 
years the campaign has taken up an average of 30 
cases per year in nearly as many countries.
Dutch CCC action to support North Sails, Sri Lanka workers, 2003
WHAT ARE CCC 
URGENT APPEALS?
German CCC action to support Indonesian workers, 2003
 The CCC only takes action on cases of rights 
violations if it is clear that this is what the 
workers involved in the dispute want.
T he CCC believes that garment workers should be the ones to decide if they want international support in speciﬁc cases where 
their rights have been violated. For workers, drawing 
public attention to rights violations at the international 
level often involves taking signiﬁcant risk. They 
might suffer discrimination for speaking out about 
the conditions in their workplace – they might be 
reassigned to other jobs, they might be suspended, 
or they might lose their jobs and be blacklisted from 
future employment. Workers must understand and 
consider these risks when deciding if they want to 
draw international attention to their dispute and 
what form that international support should take (a 
public campaign is just one option, in many cases 
workers do not want their complaints/negotiations 
to be made public but would still like support from 
international labor rights activists).* Workers and their 
representatives know the local context of their cases 
best and therefore play a key role in determining if 
international action should be taken and in developing 
the international action strategies in these cases. 
 
The CCC has limited resources and unfortunately is 
not able to follow-up on all the requests for action that 
are received. Decisions to take up cases are made by 
the CCC International Secretariat in conjunction 
with the urgent appeal coordinators at the various 
national-level CCCs (each CCC is a coalition of 
NGOs and trade unions, and each has a designated 
urgent appeal coordinator). These decisions are 
generally based on capacity available at that moment 
to undertake effective action. In prioritizing cases, 
national-level CCCs usually prefer to get involved in 
cases that have a connection to their coalition or 
market (ex. the German campaign is more likely to 
work on a case that involves a company that has its 
headquarters in Germany, or if based elsewhere sells 
its products in Germany). If the CCC is unable to 
take up a case, the campaign will, if possible, refer 
requests for assistance to other organizations that 
might be able to provide such support. 
DECIDING TO 
TAKE URGENT 
ACTION
T he CCC receives requests for action through its International Secretariat or the individual national-level CCCs (for a list of contacts 
please see the CCC website www.cleanclothes.
org/contacting.htm). CCC staff at the International 
Secretariat or the individual CCCs verify and clarify 
these requests, adding to the initial case information 
using the CCC’s network of local contacts in the 
country where the rights violation has occurred. 
Each national-level CCC has a contact person who 
handles CCC urgent appeals work in their national 
coalition, though depending on the circumstances of 
a particular case (ex. geographical location, nature 
of the rights violation) different organizations within 
the CCC coalitions might be involved in carrying out 
case-related activities (ex. depending on their speciﬁc 
expertise or focus). If more than one CCC works on a 
case, a case coordinator is selected to serve as the 
focal point for the campaign’s overall work on a case. 
Questions about which CCCs are working on a speciﬁc 
case can be directed to the International Secretariat. 
URGENT APPEALS ACTIVITIES include  
writing letters of protest to companies or public 
authorities, launching large-scale public e-mail 
and fax campaigns to pressure companies or 
governments to take positive action, writing 
letters of solidarity to workers and their 
organizations, and carrying out a variety of 
awareness-raising events (speaker tours, press 
conferences, demonstrations) to draw attention 
to cases of rights violations, both among the 
general public and the media.
HOW THE CCC WORKS  
ON URGENT APPEALS
Belgian CCC action to support Haitian workers, 2004
UK CCC demonstration in support of Thai 
garment workers, 1996
* The CCC is not a funding agency and is unable to provide ﬁnancial support to other organizations.
 I f your organization would like to explore the possibility of international support in relation to speciﬁc cases of labor rights violations, contact 
the CCC International Secretariat with the following 
information:
★ Description of the labor rights violation that has 
occurred (including dates that they occurred and 
any local labor laws that have been violated)
★ Name, address, and contact information (fax, 
phone, e-mail) of the factory/workplace involved
★ Name and contact information of the owner of the 
workplace
★ Summary of the workers’ demands
★ Name and contact information for the organizations 
seeking assistance and their relationship to the 
workers involved (again, the CCC will only take up 
cases in which it is clear that workers want such 
action to be taken)
★ Name and contact information for any union 
involved, including the union afﬁliations
★ Name and contact information for any other 
organizations actively supporting the workers
★ Name of companies (brands) that the factory 
produces for
★ Country where goods are exported to
The CCC will gather information on the brand name 
companies involved in the case and any codes of 
conduct that they might have (in some cases workers 
and their organizations ﬁnd that the company codes 
can provide them with leverage in their negotiations). 
The CCC communicates this information back to the 
organization seeking assistance and requests any 
further clariﬁcation. Then decisions are made on how 
to follow-up. Functioning channels of communication 
between the CCC and any organization requesting 
assistance are a prerequisite for the CCC to take up  
a case. 
INFORMING THE CCC 
ABOUT A POTENTIAL 
URGENT APPEALS CASE
Garment workers in Bangladesh protest after their factory shuts down, 1995
M ost of the cases in which the CCC takes action are related to violations of core labor standards on freedom of association 
and the right to organize and collectively bargain 
(International Labor Organization conventions 87 and 
98). In the past, the CCC has been contacted about 
and taken action on violations of these standards 
in Asia, North and Central America, Africa, and 
Europe. Violations include denying workers the 
right to form a trade union and bargain collectively; 
discrimination, harassment, and violence against union 
members or sympathizers; and dismissal of workers 
due to union activities. Gender discrimination and 
other bad labor practices (such as unpaid wages 
or wages below the legal minimum, denial of legal 
beneﬁts, unsafe conditions, and forced or improperly 
compensated overtime) are also violations that come 
up in cases that the CCC takes up.
Examples of cases the CCC has worked on publicly 
in recent years include the Matamoros Garment 
case, in which a Mexican factory producing for a 
major European sportswear brand denied workers 
their right to freedom of association; the Gina Form 
Bra Company case in Thailand, where union leaders 
were unjustly ﬁred after trying to negotiate for better 
working conditions at a factory producing for various 
North American brands and retailers’; the case of 
Jaqalanka Ltd., a factory in Sri Lanka where workers 
producing garments for major U.S. brands faced a 
tough anti-union campaign; and a request to support 
garment workers working for many foreign companies 
in Kenya’s export processing zones, on strike 
and demanding a range of improvements to working 
conditions. There are also numerous cases that 
never make it to the public; instead at the request 
of the workers or their organizations the CCC works 
behind the scenes to help create a space so that 
workers’ concerns are heard by local management, 
public authorities, brand-name garment companies 
and retailers, and others who have a responsibility 
to ensure compliance with good labor standards 
throughout international garment industry supply 
chains.
The cases taken up in CCC urgent appeals are often 
complex and they do not always end successfully. 
However there have been some successes: The 
struggle at Gina Form for example lasted six months 
and resulted in the reinstatement of the workers and 
the signing of a collective bargaining agreement, and 
at Jaqalanka the workers succeeded in their attempt 
to gain recognition for their union. Even in instances 
where workers demands, however justiﬁed, are 
not met, international solidarity action can make a 
contribution to the empowerment of workers and their 
organizing efforts.
EXAMPLES OF 
URGENT APPEALS 
CASES
To read more about urgent appeals cases that the CCC 
is currently working on, please see the CCC website 
www.cleanclothes.org/appeals.htm. If you would like to 
receive CCC urgent appeals by e-mail, please sign up at 
the CCC website www.cleanclothes.org/action
PLEASE CONTACT THE CCC 
INTERNATIONAL SECRETARIAT:
International Secretariat
Clean Clothes Campaign
Postbus 1584
1001 GN Amsterdam
The Netherlands
T: +31 20 412 27 85
F: +31 20 412 27 86
E: info@cleanclothes.org
For more information about other Clean Clothes 
Campaign activities, please see the CCC website: 
www.cleanclothes.org
 
HOW TO CONTACT 
THE CCC URGENT 
APPEALS SYSTEM
Clean Cloth
es Campaig
n


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The Clean Clothes Urgent Appeal System

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