ILO and Fair Wear Foundation is a flagship program of the United Nation’s International Labor Organization. The two have decided to enter a collaboration to offer the garment manufacturing companies a number of new benefits and to enhance their ability to improve the conditions of labor. This collaboration will officially start on 1st of June, this year.
On the stated matter, an agreement was signed at the Human Rights and Garment Conference in The Hague, the Netherlands on May 18, 2017. According to the official sources, the first trial project will start in Vietnam and Bangladesh in factories from which FWF members and Better Work business partner’s source.
The Better work and FWF, will join forces to accomplish three basic objectives; coordinating factory assessments to reduce the duplication of audits, streamlining improvement processes so more brands can collaborate on remediation, and make a wider range of training opportunities available to tackle priority workplace issues such as sexual harassment, health, and safety.
According to the associate director of FWF, Margreet Vrieling; “Together we are capable of better facilitating cooperation between garment brands on improved working conditions. Collaborating with Better Work provides a great opportunity to learn from one other. After all, we have the same objectives, just different approaches.”
This collaboration will significantly help both the parties to expand their work and explore new areas. With the engagement of new European brands and that of small companies, the two will be able to get better work benefits, while that of FWF will gain access to generate data that is also among many agendas of the Better Work’s research.
Dan Rees, the chief of Better Work said that; “In an industry with more than 60 million workers and much still to be done to improve adherence to international and national labor standards, we welcome this partnership as a step towards creating decent work for all.”
