Mr Didier Reynders Commissioner for Justice Mr Thierry Breton

Mr Didier Reynders Commissioner for Justice Mr Thierry Breton Mr Phil Hogan Commissioner for Internal Commissioner for Trade Market European Commission Rue de la Loi 200 1049 Brussels Regarding: Due diligence in the textile sector Brussels, 27 May 2020 The consequences of the Covid19 crisis are severely striking Europeans. The European Commission is working hard to design a recovery plan aiming at supporting workers and companies. The crisis has emphasized how important robust health care systems and social safety nets are to ensure the most vulnerable are not left behind following a cut of their incomes. As showed by the 2020 OECD Global Business Conduct, the pandemic is also badly hitting our partner countries, some of them being low- or middle - income countries where people do not enjoy our social standards and infrastructures to help them to thrive in case of hardship. We would like to draw your attention to the living and working conditions of the textile workers, most of them being female workers, that were already appalling before the crisis. The cancellation of orders by many European companies and their refusal to compensate local suppliers despite their societal commitments and contractual obligations pose severe problems for millions of people, the workers, their families and communities. They cannot rely on the authorities nor on the social model to provide them with decent living conditions. Such behaviour from our companies is in stark opposition with the Sustainable Development Goals which are a compass for the action of your Commission. Being the first global importer of garments, the EU bears a special responsibility vis-à-vis the downstream workers. The behaviour of these companies highlights that profits stemming from low social conditions are not acceptable anymore. We call upon the European Commission to take the initiative to hold the textile companies accountable in order to: 1 ● respect the freedom of association and engage in social dialogue with unions and representatives of workers, ideally with the support of authorities with the aim to mitigate the adverse effects of the crisis; ● honour the payment of all orders placed even if the merchandise was not shipped; ● extend the delivery deadlines to enable the suppliers to meet the demand; ● ensure that layoffs are avoided, that wages are paid in time and that legal dismissal conditions are respected; ● ensure that safety and health at the workplace of suppliers which are an important feature in this branch dealing with hazardous products are in line with WHO recommendations (social distancing, PPE...) guaranteed when their activity will recover and that their right of withdrawal is respected in case these conditions are not fulfilled ; ● ensure that labour rights are enforced, with a special attention for the workers who are sick or present symptoms of coronavirus and for migrant workers; ● reexamine their purchasing practices in light of the above; ● facilitate the activities of independent labour inspectors and social auditors in the clothing and footwear supply chain. We can’t remain silent about the situation of millions of children working in factories. We expect that in light of the zero tolerance approach for child labour hailed by President von der Leyen, you will remind European companies to assume their full responsibility on this ground, prompting them to put in place systemic solutions with local communities rather than simply locking them out of the factories. We finally call upon the European Commission to kick off the work in view of submitting to the European Parliament and the Council a draft legislative framework for mandatory due diligence so that European business will have to seek and identify potential weaknesses in terms of Human, social and environmental rights all along their supply chains and put in place appropriate grievance mechanisms and corrective solutions. Two years after the adoption of the EP resolution on the EU flagship initiative on the garment sector1, we remain at your disposal to support the Commission in this important work in liaison with civil society organisations to make supply chains more just, sustainable and resilient and more broadly, to make European companies contribute to the achievement of the SDGs. Sincerely yours, Saskia BRICMONT Sylvie GUILLAUME Philippe LAMBERTS Marc TARABELLA Nikolaj VILLUMSEN Dragos PÎSLARU Ernest URTASUN Raphaël GLUCKSMANN Karen MELCHIOR Tilly METZ Alice KUHNKE Anna CAVAZZINI Alexandra GEESE Francisco GUERREIRO Helmut SCHOLZ Anne-Sophie PELLETIER 1 https://www.europarl.europa.eu/doceo/document/TA-8-2017-0196_EN.html 2 Cornelia ERNST Gwendoline DELBOS-CORFIELD Salima YENBOU Konstantinos ARVANITIS Samira RAFAELA Michèle RIVASI David CORMAND Maria ARENA Vlad BOTOS-MARIUS Aurore LALUCQ Michael BLOSS Petra DE SUTTER Karima DELLI Clara PONSATI OBIOLS Marie TOUSSAINT Claude GRUFFAT François ALFONSI Alessandra MORETTI Kira PETER-HANSEN Delara BURKHARDT Mounir SATOURI Joachim SCHUSTER Isabel SANTOS Alexis GEORGOULIS Pascal DURAND Damein CARÊME Andreas SCHIEDER Caroline ROOSE Pierre LARROUTUROU Manuel BOMPARD Milan BRGLEZ Manon AUBRY Yannick JADOT Reinhard BÜTIKOFER Grace O’SULLIVAN Erik MARQUARDT Heidi HAUTALA Lara WOLTERS Benoît BITEAU Gabriele BISCHOFF 2 .

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