The half hour episode explores how organisations in different countries from across the Clean Clothes Campaign network supported workers in the time of COVID. In this episode, we hear how:

• Community mobilisation defended a garment worker in Romania;
• Trade unions and worker organisations made gains in Bangladesh and Sri Lanka;
• The effects of the pandemic in Turkey has led to a re-think on future campaigns to support worker rights;

Plus thoughts and reflections on the impact of COVID on worker organising.

Please share your feedback, comments and questions, by emailing: podcast@cleanclothes.org

Speakers:
Laura Stefanut, campaigner and former investigative journalist, Romania
Anton Marcus, Joint Secretary of FTZ&GSEU (Free Trade Zone and General Services Employees Union), Sri Lanka
Kalpona Akter, Executive Director of BCWS (Bangladesh Center for Workers Solidarity)
Bego Demir, Clean Clothes Campaign, Turkey
Christie Miedema, Clean Clothes Campaign International Office, Netherlands
Mandy Felicia, EILER (Ecumenical Institute for Labor Education and Research), Philippines

Host: Febriana Firdaus (febrianafirdaus.com)
Sound Engineering Support:  Steve Adam (www.spectrosonics.com.au)
Producer: Matthew Abud
Clean Clothes Podcast Team: Anne Dekker, Johnson Ching-Yin Yeung, Liz Parker, Tanne de Goei

Full Transcript

HOST

Welcome to the first episode of the first series of the Clean Clothes podcast. I’m Febriana Firdaus. 

As this episode is being produced, we’ve all heard terrible news out of Myanmar, with the military overthrow of the elected parliament.

From all of us on the podcast, and certainly everyone in Clean Clothes, we want to express our solidarity and support to everyone from our network in Myanmar. 

And to all the people of that country who stand for democracy, and for human rights and the rights of workers. 

We’re also sending our solidarity to my co-host, Manny Maung – she’s completely caught up now, in the response to the military coup. 

We’ll have more to say from Clean Clothes, at the end of the show.

We know that under COVID, brands have cancelled orders and refused to pay for completed work. 

Many suppliers have cut wages and fired workers, who have far too often also been excluded from social safety nets and other support.

In Romania one worker, Angelica Manole, protested against her wage cut. 

Laura Stefanut is a former investigative journalist there, who got involved in the campaign. She tells the story. 

LAURA

Angelica is a brave worker who spoke about the fact that she was only paid about one hundred and forty Euros for one month’s work. Each day she worked at least eight hours a day and she was paid like about half the minimum legal wage in Romania. So she spoke about this on Facebook. I believe she was the first garment worker that was so outspoken and so open to speaking to journalists and to Facebook friends. That’s how we found out. 

The company Tanex where Angelica was working, they’re among the biggest garment factories in Romania. Certainly they’re a famous factory. They were actually in the past they were trying to attract workers by saying that they pay more than other factories because as you probably know, in Romania workers are only paid the minimum wage, they work extra hours many times unpaid, the living wage is way above the legal minimum wage here so we’re talking about people who work but stay poor. 

At the factory what they did when the inspection went there, they said that she didn’t work actually. So basically they lied, they said that she didn’t come to work. But then you know it was a public scandal, I mean I helped her write some complaints to the Ministry of Labour, to the worker inspection, I also myself wrote complaints. I also contacted the Labour Ministry in Romania directly by phone and I was promised that things would be resolved and somehow they were, I mean there was another inspection which found the first inspection was wrong, and actually the factory did not register any absence of the worker, she was obviously there. So they fined the factory.

Angelica was fired by Tanex. So even having all the national media’s attention on you, even having strong figures who are taking your side like the Minister itself, she was still fired by the factory. Why, the factory wrote that she was fired because she spoke to the media. 

I decided to generate a fundraising for Angelica, so we can cover the costs for her during the trial which lasted at least six months and have her paid the minimum salary, what she had at the factory. And it was amazing, in less than two days all the money were raised and there was huge support for Angelica from the public, you know, they were like cheering her, and actually so much money was raised that we were able to help three persons who were laid off from the factory.

I think that this was utterly important, because the factories try to show that if you don’t do exactly what the factory wants you to do, then you are, it’s game over for you. And it usually is you know, so it’s so important to show that the community can support you in such cases. It’s utterly important. 

Then I proposed this Urgent Appeal to the Clean Clothes Campaign on Angelica’s case because I thought it made all the sense. She was very involved, she was very active, we knew the brands, we had a lot of data on the factory. They contacted the brands that were headquartered in those specific countries. At first it didn’t seem to go well because the brands were reluctant, they were saying we were not right, the factories were saying everything is ok, look. So the CCC actually provided proof of these fines, and proof that the factory was actually lying to the brands. And they finally you know, they were convinced. 

All the workers were paid. This was indeed a victory, even those who were fired, they were finally given the money, all the money they were owed. But this was just a case where everybody got involved you know. There are over one hundred and twenty thousand workers in this industry, like legally registered. So in order to make things work like for a bigger length of time, you have to have the people inside who know their rights, who are organised in one way or another. 

There was a trade union, Unicomf, which was pretty active meaning that they heard about the case, they went there, they tried to get inside the factory, they were not allowed. So then they pushed together with the help of the brands and they were allowed inside the factory, they could talk to workers. But after this point they couldn’t form a trade union. So they said Ok, guys we did what we could, we went there, we presented the case. If the workers didn’t get subscribed then we cannot waste much resources because we don’t have so much resources. Which I can understand, but at the same time we know that community organising or forming a trade union somewhere, it takes a lot of time and patience and some resources. They were helpful, but unfortunately a trade union was not formed there. 

Th...