Labour Behind The Label

Our Action Card this time deals with the crucial worker safety issues of factory fires and mass fainting.

To learn more about sweatshops in the garment industry, students can stage their own one-day sweatshop for charity, living through the experience of working in an exploitative garment factory in their own school, just for one day.

The students plan and lead their own project, deciding how to stage the one-day event, what product to manufacture, what rules to abide by (for example, 'no talking', 'no toilet breaks', which is common in the sweatshop world), and how to sell the product they have produced afterwards. All profits from this event go to Labour Behind the Label to support garment workers' struggles for better working conditions in the real world.

Labour Behind the Label makes a small amount of money go a long way.  

* We run public-facing campaigns to publicise the problems that garment workers face on a day-to-day basis. 

* We publish in-depth reports and education materials covering a wide range of garment industry-related issues. 

*We work directly with worker organisations and unions in producer countries to bring the voice of workers to brands and retailers in the UK and open a dialogue towards improving conditions. 

*We work with our Clean Clothes Campaign partners across Europe to strengthen global action on behalf of garment workers.  You can help us to do more by supporting us financially.

Regular donations are vital to our core funding; they ensure a solid foundation for us to work from.  These are some of things that your donations could be used for:

-          £25 a month can help us be ready to respond to urgent appeals from workers overseas who may be experiencing harassment or worse from their employers.

-          £20 a month can help pay for research and report writing such as our Let’s Clean Up Fashion report; a benchmark of what companies are doing and a lever to make them progress.

-          £15 a month can help us fund a speaker tour, bringing the real voices of workers to UK companies and consumers and spreading the message of equality and improved rights.

-          £10 a month can help us run workshops for students and tutors, bringing much needed introductions to industry ethics into the curriculum.

-          £5 a month can enable thousands of supporters to take action on companies through our action cards; applying pressure for change.

Regrettably we are unable to accept donations from any profit-making companies in the garment sector as this could compromise our ethical stance.

For those of you who prefer to donate by post:

We love one-off donations, so if you'd like to make our day, you can send a cheque, payable to "Labour Behind the Label Ltd" to 10-12 Picton Street, Bristol BS6 5QA.

Or if you want to give a regular amount you can download this standing order form, fill it in, and post it back to us.

If you are an organisation such as a Trade Union body or an NGO and would like to show your support for Labour Behind the Label's campaign on behalf of garment workers then please consider becoming an affiliate. 

Labour Behind the Label

Vision Mission and Values

July 2009

Vision: a transformation of the distribution of power in the clothing industry, so that the rights of people at work and in the community are respected.

Mission: As part of the movement for global justice, we support garment workers' demands through strategic actions aimed at those involved in the production, marketing and consumption of clothing.

Values:

• We work in a way that is consistent with how we want the world to be, not how it is.
• We believe transformational change is needed: we won't pursue short-term goals where this comes at the expense of achieving our long term vision.
• We are independent from the clothing industry: we are campaigners, not consultants.
• We always take our cue from garment workers or their representatives, above all else.
• We try to support and draw together other organisations working in support of garment workers' rights; we do not try to compete with them.
• We emphasise that gender is central to the problems faced by garment workers and the solutions required.

Labour Behind the Label is a campaign that supports garment workers' efforts worldwide to improve their working conditions, through awareness raising, information provision and encouraging international solidarity between workers and consumers.

Our members include trade unions and their local branches, consumer organisations, campaign groups, and charities.

These organisations work together, through LBL, to achieve four aims:

1. Raise public awareness and mobilise consumers.
2. Pressure companies to take responsibility for workers' rights in the entirety of their supply chains.
3. Support workers in their struggles for decent working conditions, including speaker tours and urgent appeals.
4. Campaign for governments to take responsibility by legislating on corporate responsibility and in their role as consumers of workwear.

We work together with similar campaigns across Europe and with partners in producer countries through our members and the Clean Clothes Campaign, of which we are the UK platform.

Read more about us in our annual report.

You can also contact us here:

E: info (at) labour behind the label . org (all one word)
A: Labour Behind the Label, 10-12 Picton Street, Bristol BS6 5QA
T: 0117 9441700