RESPECTING HUMAN RIGHTS

Many people contribute to the production of our garments. They work in factories and workshops in various countries, where often human rights risks exist. We have recorded our standards and values on protecting human rights in our Supplier Declaration for Social & Environmental Sustainability.

We focus on addressing the most severe and likely risks first. Based on our risk analysis, we have decided to invest our energy first in these four topics:

• Occupational health & safety
• Freedom of association
• Protecting children and young employees
• Decent working hours

We monitoring our sewing workshops on these and other risks through independent audits and visits by our local sourcing teams (see transparency page), and request improvement plans from our suppliers where needed. In addition, we work on preventing and addressing these risks through collaborations with other brands, suppliers and expert organizations in projects and industry initiatives.

Occupational health & safety

America Today signed the Bangladesh Accord in 2013, the Transition Accord in 2018 and the International Accord in 2021. The International Accord is a legally binding agreement between garment brands, retailers, and trade unions to make Ready-Made Garment (RMG) and textile factories safe. At our partner factories in Bangladesh, safety committees are trained and all employees are informed about safe working conditions. The factories also undergo regular independent audits for fire and building safety as well as electricity. Over the years, they have worked hard and carried out many improvements. The progress rate of the original and new findings from the factory audits is 97 or 98%, with 100% of the fire safety and structural problems resolved and 90–95% of the electrical problems resolved.

In the 2021 International Accord the parties commit to continue the collective workplace safety program in Bangladesh and to expand safety programs to other countries based on the principles and standards of the previous fire and building safety Accords of 2013 and 2018.

By 2023, the Agreement has further expanded to Pakistan. Currently, we are working with one production site in Pakistan. Therefore, we decided to join this Accord as well. The agreement of both Accords is based on a number of fundamental principles, including: respect for freedom of association, independent administration and implementation, a high level of transparency, provisions to ensure that remediation is financially viable, safety committee training and a worker awareness program, and a credible, independent grievance mechanism.

Freedom of Association

We took part in the AMPLIFY project with the aim of improving employee representation and social dialogue between suppliers and their employees. The project was set up by Mondiaal FNV and CNV International. In the project we learned about the topic from experts and other brands, and we spoke with a selection of our suppliers and the worker representatives about the situation at their factories. In 2022 we plan to continue our efforts and aim to ensure that all workers in our key factories in Turkey have access to a functioning grievance mechanism and worker representation.

Protecting children and young employees

From 2017 to 2020, we took part in the project Combatting Child Labor in the Garment Supply Chain, together with three of our factory partners in Bangladesh and with the support of UNICEF and local partners. The factories worked hard to improve working conditions and operations to prevent child labor and to support employees with children.

In 2021 we started a new cooperation with UNICEF, this time in Turkey. Together with one of our key suppliers, we are examining the entire Turkish supply chain and addressing the largest risks there. For more information regarding this project, read it here.