Good Clothes, Fair Pay: Demand a living wage for the people who make our clothes

Good Clothes, Fair Pay is our new campaign demanding living wage legislation across the garment, textile and footwear sector. We need 1 million signatures from EU citizens over the next 12 months to push for legislation that requires companies to conduct living wage due diligence in their supply chains.

Millions of people work in textile, clothing and footwear production around the world. The vast majority are not paid enough to fulfil their basic needs.These people remain trapped in poverty while big fashion companies continue to profit from their hard work. It is a deeply unfair and exploitative system, and we must demand better. The Covid-19 pandemic has deepened wage insecurity for the people who make our clothes, leaving workers without any social safety net, struggling to pay for food, healthcare and shelter.

This is why Good Clothes Fair Pay is calling on the European Commission to introduce legislation requiring that brands and retailers in the garment sector conduct specific due diligence in their supply chain to ensure workers are paid living wages.

The European Citizens’ Initiative is a unique instrument enabling citizens to call on EU policymakers to propose legislation in an area of EU competence. The campaign must collect at least 1 million signatures from EU citizens to reach the European Commission. You can read the full legal proposal here.

The scope covers brands and retailers who want to trade in the EU, independently of whether they are based in the EU or elsewhere. It calls on brands and retailers to put in place, implement, monitor, and publicly disclose a time-bound and target-bound plan to close the gap between actual and living wages.

It puts a particular emphasis on requiring brands to identify risk groups that are particularly hard hit by low wages, such as women and migrant workers. Our proposal includes measures such as the companies’ pricing, costing and overall purchasing practices, ensuring that workers do not have to rely on excessive overtime to meet their basic needs.

This legislation would be the first living wage legislation at the EU level for garment workers worldwide. Better laws and regulations in Europe can make sure that companies all over the world do their part in ensuring that the workers in their supply chains are paid fairly.

ADD YOUR NAME TO TAKE ACTION

Anyone with an EU passport can sign, no matter where you live in the world. If you are not an EU citizen, for example if you are a British national and no longer qualify since Brexit, you can still help us reach our goal of one million signatures by sharing our content on social media and telling your family, friends and colleagues. Click here to send a tweet now or download our campaign materials.