Skip to main content
Donate to the 95 years appeal
Workers’ rights in globalised industry – how can we protect them?
Over the summer the Morning Star reported on a new study showing that major fashion brands were complicit in union-busting by Third World suppliers in the garment industry. Editor Ben Chacko spoke to IndustriALL general secretary VALTER SANCHES to find out what trade unions can do to tackle abuses stretching across international supply chains

THE Covid-19 crisis and the lockdowns imposed as a result hit the garment industry hard, causing order cancellations and job losses in producer countries.

What can trade unions do to press brands to shield suppliers from the risk of a sudden loss of income that they pass onto their workers?
 
“This problem emerged early in the pandemic. In April many brands endorsed a call to action, a tripartite initiative led by the International Labour Organisation (ILO) with a commitment by brands to pay for finished goods and goods in production.

“Brands that haven’t endorsed the call should be pressed to do so,” Sanches says.

The 95th Anniversary Appeal
Support the Morning Star
You have reached the free limit.
Subscribe to continue reading.
More from this author
Telling ‘Silk Road stories’ for a multipolar world
Features / 19 September 2025
19 September 2025

Morning Star editor BEN CHACKO reports from the start of Kunming’s Belt and Road media forum, where 200 journalists from 71 countries celebrated a new openness and optimism, forged by China’s enormous contribution to global development

Protesters marching in Epping, Essex after a temporary injunction that would have blocked asylum seekers from being housed at the Bell Hotel, was overturned at the Court of Appeal, August 31, 2025
Anti-Racism / 13 September 2025
13 September 2025

Morning Star editor BEN CHACKO reports on TUC Congress discussions on how to confront the far right and rebuild the left’s appeal to workers

Paul Nowak, general secretary of the TUC speaking at the TUC congress at the ACC Liverpool. Picture date: Monday September 11, 2023
Workers' Rights / 10 September 2025
10 September 2025
Similar stories
The crowd at Manchester Punk Festival 2024
Culture / 11 April 2025
11 April 2025
Ben Cowles speaks with IAN ‘TREE’ ROBINSON and ANDY DAVIES, two of the string pullers behind the Manchester Punk Festival, ahead of its 10th year show later this month
Literature / 25 March 2025
25 March 2025
JESSICA WIDNER explores how the twin themes of violence and love run through the novels of South Korean Nobel prize-winner Han Kang
GUILTY PARTIES: Rembrandt Van Rijn (1606-1669), Syndics of t
Book Review / 4 February 2025
4 February 2025
CAROLINE FOWLER explains how the slave trade helped establish the ‘golden age’ of Dutch painting and where to find its hidden traces
RESILIENCE: (Right) Stand Up To Racism protest on October 26
Features / 31 December 2024
31 December 2024
The Morning Star sorts the good eggs from the rotten scoundrels of the year