The practical ways that you can join in building
Original Members of Dignity Returns
The garment cooperatives Dignity Returns of Thailand and La Alameda of Argentina announced that on June 4th they would launch simultaneously in Bangkok and Buenos Aires the first global clothing brand free of slave labor: No Chains.
In an unprecedented effort, overcoming the difficulties of customs, languages and distances, the workers of the two cooperatives have joined forces in a common cry and have resolved to launch a global line of shirts that symbolize the fight for a world with no chains.
Going further, designers from Hong Kong, Philippines, United States, South Korea, United States, among others, have jointly contributed their ideas to translate into images this unprecedented collective construction.
The dream is feasible because both cooperatives, despite the distances, have something in common: they were shaped by worker who fought against sweatshops, against the overexploitation of brands, and they seek to regain their dignity through forms of self-management to show that it is possible to produce clean clothes without exploitation.
No Chains will be a global brand, but fundamentally a symbol that collectively we hope will be taken up by garment workers and responsible consumers across the globe. It is the beginning of a global network that should be weaving together groups of cooperatives and groups of garment workers, and grouping together consumers concerned about respect for human rights and labor.
No Chains calls on unions, NGOs, cooperatives, companies claiming compliance to labor standards, responsible consumer groups and the general public to join this collective effort. There are several, diverse ways that you can associate with No Chains, because No Chains is the embroy of a network that has a beginning but no end, and hopes to be reproduced on all five continents.
These are the ways in which you can join No Chains
- By featuring clothing from No Chains in local organizations that are supportive of the idea, either paying them in advance or taking them on consignment.
- Spreading the stories of both cooperatives and the great efforts of both of them to demonstrate that workers can produce clean clothes that are free of slave labor.
- By joining as a cooperative or a self-managed group of garment workers to the productive network of No Chains, always complying with the principles of workers’ democracy and equitable distribution of efforts and profits.
- By bringing new designs and ideas for the brand.
- By denouncing in the website pages of both cooperatives or of No Chains, the situations of abuse, exploitation or slavery in the garment industry.
No Chains does not depend on market capitalistic conditions, but the collective will of workers and consumers who dream of another world, where there is no exploitation or slavery and where the dignity of workers is respected.
That is why we call you to join this dream, no matter how far you are, or what language you speak or religion you profess. The important thing is to defend the values of human dignity in a world with no chains.
No Chains for Garment Workers
The brand No Chains will be launched on June 4, simultaneously, in Buenos Aires and Bangkok. The items produced by cooperatives The Alameda and Dignity Returns, will be sold throughout the world to promote decent work.
No Chains Launch Party at La Alameda Factory, Buenos Aires, Argentina
In Bangkok and Buenos Aires two parallel stories took place. In the Thai capital, workers in a textile company organized to recover the company where they worked, after closure, and formed a sewing cooperative. Here, immigrants who were exploited in illegal sewing partnered and created their own products. Both ventures, unlike other lines that run along the same lines, were crossed to develop a common proposal: creating a global brand of clothing that symbolizes the fight against slave labor, both in Southeast Asia and South America. The brand is called “No Chains” in English, and will be launched simultaneously on 4 June. The first production will be shirts, printed with motifs that were the result of an international design competition organized by the joint venture of both cooperatives.
The unusual alliance between two groups of workers with different languages, different customs and beliefs but with the same goal started to take shape just over a year, during a meeting of social organizations, unions and human rights in Southeast Asia, to which were invited representatives of the cooperative in Argentina. The protagonists of history are the cooperative Dignity Returns, founded in Bangkok following the closure of a garment factory in 2003, and the cooperative December 20-La Alameda, born in Buenos Aires from the crisis 2001. The two organizations came together, a year ago at a meeting convened by Asia Monitor Resource Centre, an NGO based in Hong Kong that gathers organizations from 17 countries in Southeast Asia and promotes what in this region is seen as “decent work”.
In December 2008 we met the people of La Alameda at a meeting in Lima, Peru, and thought we would get very important input from their experience in the meeting we had scheduled for March 2009 in Bangkok. That’s where they met with people from Dignity Returns and agreed to launch a global brand, “he said from Hong Kong to Pagina/12 Doris Lee, Program Coordinator for publications, of the Asia Monitor Resource Centre.
With the agreement, both organizations took the first step in creating a “global network of sewing workers.” “The objective, rather than making a profit, is to globalize the struggle against slave labor, raise awareness among consumers and workers,” Gustavo Vera told this newspaper, president of the cooperative The Alameda and one of the promoters of the global brand.
From Bangkok, Andrew Little, a spokesman for the cooperative Dignity Returns, told Pagina/12 that aims to launch the global brand serves to “make visible the model of international cooperative organization and raise awareness about the struggles of workers.”
Thus, the partnership that shaped the brand No Chains intends as a starting point to join labor unions of other countries. “From the brand is known, we will receive orders from cooperatives in other countries to join the global network. After a period of study, to verify that they conform to the rules of clean work, shall be brought, “said Vera. The global brand launch is scheduled for June 4, simultaneously, at 11 am at the La Alameda, Buenos Aires, at 21 at the headquarters of Returns Dignity in Bangkok. The idea is that the two events will be connected with each other via video conference.
From that day will be on sale the first set of shirts to No Chains, the new brand, local fair trade in various cities worldwide. “There will be special pricing for trade unions and organizations,” says Vera. The owner of the cooperative Argentina clarified that the purpose of the undertaking is not commercial and that the proceeds will be shared equally between the two workshops, although in Buenos Aires production costs are three times more than in Bangkok.
“Message of Freedom” designed by Virginia Marra, Mariana Musso, Nicolás Spinaldi.
Each garment will cost between 12 and 15 dollars (about 50 pesos on average), says Tamara Rosenberg, the head of sales for Argentina and Latin America. Each cooperative is going to sell in their outlets (in Buenos Aires, in the place of Bonpland 1660, Palermo, and at the headquarters of La Alameda, Directory and Lacarra, Parque Avellaneda) but also be distributed by mail order are made through its website, www.nochains.org, organizations of any city in the world interested in marketing the product, prepaid mail or entry system. As an initial capital, the venture had a grant from the Avina Foundation.
The two organizations launched the global brand will appear but were born in very different realities. The Dignity Report founders are former employees of the firm Bed and Bath, which manufactured clothing for export, hired by multinationals such as Nike, Adidas and Umbro. Although their contracts were formalized, performed under a regime of extended shifts and even “supplied them with drugs to stay awake,” according to the site has the cooperative. When the factory closed in 2003, were dismissed without compensation. After several weeks of conflict, and camping against the Thai Ministry of Labour, the government managed to give them facilities to buy industrial sewing machines and formed the Solidarity Cooperative Factory. That organization, today comprises 16 workers, mostly women, took the name of Dignity Returns, brand garments produced.
The Alameda, however, emerged as a community kitchen in the midst of the crisis of December 2001. In that room began to attend Bolivians, many of them illegal immigrants living in their own sewing workshops where they worked. Workers who managed to escape the situation, many of whom were living in semi-slavery, with its documents retained by the workshops and provided with outstanding debts to their employers for transportation from Bolivia-sewing cooperative formed December 20.
Manop Kaewpaka was wearing the badges of “immoral capitalists” during their demonstration against Neo-liberalism in front of UN headquarter in Bangkok, 2010.
The March 2009 meeting between social organizations, unions in Korea, the Philippines, Indonesia and Thailand was held in the framework of the global crisis affecting the economy, and that resulted in the loss of jobs worldwide. “We thought we could learn from the experience of countries like Argentina, where workers resorted to the creation of cooperatives and organized labor to fight against slave labor,” said Doris Lee, who was born in South Korea but has lived in Hong Kong.
The two cooperatives that have products and brands themselves, would in principle make the same models at present. “But we decided to call an international competition for new designs,” said Gustavo Vera. The six winners were chosen by vote of the members of the two cooperatives: they were chosen two works from Argentina, one of South Korea, one of Indonesia, another United States and the rest of Hong Kong, “he added. The winners will be awarded the design stamped into the new models and a number of shirts.
The parallel stories of the two cooperatives not only crossed in the initiation of the global brand. “There were also demonstrations of solidarity with the struggles and challenges each faced in their country,” he said Gustavo Vera. It recalled the time that Thai workers were to express to the Embassy of Argentina in Bangkok when the garment workers of La Alameda were attacked by a gang of workshops in Buenos Aires, in July last year. And garment workers’ mobilization in Argentina and Bolivia here in front of the Thai embassy in solidarity with the dismissed workers of the multinational The Triumph lingerie in Bangkok. The fact is that, despite the distance and cultural differences, the world of work in both countries have much in common: the use of illegal migrants who are recruited for half the salary of a local worker in working for large companies apparel brands.
The fabric of society into two worlds of garment workers, from initial proposal to the product launch, took a little over a year. The protagonists in the presentation, will speak very different languages, Thai and Spanish, though the mediation of English required. However, all say they have a common language, which is the goal of working with dignity.
Los costureros de las cooperativas de Dignity Returns de Tailandia y la Alameda de la Argentina anunciaron que el próximo 4 de junio lanzarán en simultáneo en Bangkok y Buenos Aires la primer marca global y libre de trabajo esclavo: No Chains.
En un esfuerzo sin precedentes, venciendo las dificultades de las costumbres, los idiomas y las distancias, los costureros de ambas cooperativas han unido sus esfuerzos en un grito común y han resuelto lanzar una línea global de remeras que simbolicen la lucha por un mundo sin cadenas.
A poco andar, diseñadores de Hong Kong, Filipinas, Estados Unidos, Corea del Sur, Estados Unidos , entre otros, han aportado solidariamente sus ideas para plasmar en imágenes esta inédita construcción colectiva.
El sueño es viable porque ambas cooperativas a pesar de las distancias, tienen algo en común: fueron conformadas por costureros que lucharon contra los talleres clandestinos, la superexplotación de las marcas y buscan recuperar la dignidad a través de formas autogestivas que demuestren que es posible la ropa limpia y sin explotación.
get involvedNo Chains será una marca global, pero fundamentalmente un símbolo que aspiramos sea apropiado colectivamente por costureros y consumidores responsables de todo el planeta. Es el comienzo de una red global que debe ir entretejiendo cooperativas y grupos de costureros y agrupando consumidores preocupados por el respeto de los derechos humanos y laborales.
No Chains convoca a los sindicatos, ONGs, cooperativas, empresas que reivindiquen el respeto a las normas laborales, grupos de consumidores responsables y público en general a sumarse a esta construcción colectiva. Las formas en que se pueden asociar a No Chains son múltiples y variadas, porque No Chains es el embrió de una red que tiene principio, pero no fin y que aspira a reproducirse en los cinco continentes.
These are the ways in which you can join No Chains
- By featuring clothing from No Chains in local organizations that are supportive of the idea, either paying them in advance or taking them on consignment.
- Spreading the stories of both cooperatives and the great efforts of both of them to demonstrate that workers can produce clean clothes that are free of slave labor.
- By joining as a cooperative or a self-managed group of garment workers to the productive network of No Chains, always complying with the principles of workers’ democracy and equitable distribution of efforts and profits.
- By bringing new designs and ideas for the brand.
- By denouncing in the website pages of both cooperatives or of No Chains, the situations of abuse, exploitation or slavery in the garment industry.
No Chains does not depend on market capitalistic conditions, but the collective will of workers and consumers who dream of another world, where there is no exploitation or slavery and where the dignity of workers is respected.
That is why we call you to join this dream, no matter how far you are, or what language you speak or religion you profess. The important thing is to defend the values of human dignity in a world with no chains.
No Chains for Garment Workers
The brand No Chains will be launched on June 4, simultaneously, in Buenos Aires and Bangkok. The items produced by cooperatives The Alameda and Dignity Returns, will be sold throughout the world to promote decent work.
No Chains Launch Party at La Alameda Factory, Buenos Aires, Argentina
In Bangkok and Buenos Aires two parallel stories took place. In the Thai capital, workers in a textile company organized to recover the company where they worked, after closure, and formed a sewing cooperative. Here, immigrants who were exploited in illegal sewing partnered and created their own products. Both ventures, unlike other lines that run along the same lines, were crossed to develop a common proposal: creating a global brand of clothing that symbolizes the fight against slave labor, both in Southeast Asia and South America. The brand is called “No Chains” in English, and will be launched simultaneously on 4 June. The first production will be shirts, printed with motifs that were the result of an international design competition organized by the joint venture of both cooperatives.
The unusual alliance between two groups of workers with different languages, different customs and beliefs but with the same goal started to take shape just over a year, during a meeting of social organizations, unions and human rights in Southeast Asia, to which were invited representatives of the cooperative in Argentina. The protagonists of history are the cooperative Dignity Returns, founded in Bangkok following the closure of a garment factory in 2003, and the cooperative December 20-La Alameda, born in Buenos Aires from the crisis 2001. The two organizations came together, a year ago at a meeting convened by Asia Monitor Resource Centre, an NGO based in Hong Kong that gathers organizations from 17 countries in Southeast Asia and promotes what in this region is seen as “decent work”.
In December 2008 we met the people of La Alameda at a meeting in Lima, Peru, and thought we would get very important input from their experience in the meeting we had scheduled for March 2009 in Bangkok. That’s where they met with people from Dignity Returns and agreed to launch a global brand, “he said from Hong Kong to Pagina/12 Doris Lee, Program Coordinator for publications, of the Asia Monitor Resource Centre.
With the agreement, both organizations took the first step in creating a “global network of sewing workers.” “The objective, rather than making a profit, is to globalize the struggle against slave labor, raise awareness among consumers and workers,” Gustavo Vera told this newspaper, president of the cooperative The Alameda and one of the promoters of the global brand.
From Bangkok, Andrew Little, a spokesman for the cooperative Dignity Returns, told Pagina/12 that aims to launch the global brand serves to “make visible the model of international cooperative organization and raise awareness about the struggles of workers.”
Thus, the partnership that shaped the brand No Chains intends as a starting point to join labor unions of other countries. “From the brand is known, we will receive orders from cooperatives in other countries to join the global network. After a period of study, to verify that they conform to the rules of clean work, shall be brought, “said Vera. The global brand launch is scheduled for June 4, simultaneously, at 11 am at the La Alameda, Buenos Aires, at 21 at the headquarters of Returns Dignity in Bangkok. The idea is that the two events will be connected with each other via video conference.
From that day will be on sale the first set of shirts to No Chains, the new brand, local fair trade in various cities worldwide. “There will be special pricing for trade unions and organizations,” says Vera. The owner of the cooperative Argentina clarified that the purpose of the undertaking is not commercial and that the proceeds will be shared equally between the two workshops, although in Buenos Aires production costs are three times more than in Bangkok.
“Message of Freedom” designed by Virginia Marra, Mariana Musso, Nicolás Spinaldi.
Each garment will cost between 12 and 15 dollars (about 50 pesos on average), says Tamara Rosenberg, the head of sales for Argentina and Latin America. Each cooperative is going to sell in their outlets (in Buenos Aires, in the place of Bonpland 1660, Palermo, and at the headquarters of La Alameda, Directory and Lacarra, Parque Avellaneda) but also be distributed by mail order are made through its website, www.nochains.org, organizations of any city in the world interested in marketing the product, prepaid mail or entry system. As an initial capital, the venture had a grant from the Avina Foundation.
The two organizations launched the global brand will appear but were born in very different realities. The Dignity Report founders are former employees of the firm Bed and Bath, which manufactured clothing for export, hired by multinationals such as Nike, Adidas and Umbro. Although their contracts were formalized, performed under a regime of extended shifts and even “supplied them with drugs to stay awake,” according to the site has the cooperative. When the factory closed in 2003, were dismissed without compensation. After several weeks of conflict, and camping against the Thai Ministry of Labour, the government managed to give them facilities to buy industrial sewing machines and formed the Solidarity Cooperative Factory. That organization, today comprises 16 workers, mostly women, took the name of Dignity Returns, brand garments produced.
The Alameda, however, emerged as a community kitchen in the midst of the crisis of December 2001. In that room began to attend Bolivians, many of them illegal immigrants living in their own sewing workshops where they worked. Workers who managed to escape the situation, many of whom were living in semi-slavery, with its documents retained by the workshops and provided with outstanding debts to their employers for transportation from Bolivia-sewing cooperative formed December 20.
Manop Kaewpaka was wearing the badges of “immoral capitalists” during their demonstration against Neo-liberalism in front of UN headquarter in Bangkok, 2010.
The March 2009 meeting between social organizations, unions in Korea, the Philippines, Indonesia and Thailand was held in the framework of the global crisis affecting the economy, and that resulted in the loss of jobs worldwide. “We thought we could learn from the experience of countries like Argentina, where workers resorted to the creation of cooperatives and organized labor to fight against slave labor,” said Doris Lee, who was born in South Korea but has lived in Hong Kong.
The two cooperatives that have products and brands themselves, would in principle make the same models at present. “But we decided to call an international competition for new designs,” said Gustavo Vera. The six winners were chosen by vote of the members of the two cooperatives: they were chosen two works from Argentina, one of South Korea, one of Indonesia, another United States and the rest of Hong Kong, “he added. The winners will be awarded the design stamped into the new models and a number of shirts.
The parallel stories of the two cooperatives not only crossed in the initiation of the global brand. “There were also demonstrations of solidarity with the struggles and challenges each faced in their country,” he said Gustavo Vera. It recalled the time that Thai workers were to express to the Embassy of Argentina in Bangkok when the garment workers of La Alameda were attacked by a gang of workshops in Buenos Aires, in July last year. And garment workers’ mobilization in Argentina and Bolivia here in front of the Thai embassy in solidarity with the dismissed workers of the multinational The Triumph lingerie in Bangkok. The fact is that, despite the distance and cultural differences, the world of work in both countries have much in common: the use of illegal migrants who are recruited for half the salary of a local worker in working for large companies apparel brands.
The fabric of society into two worlds of garment workers, from initial proposal to the product launch, took a little over a year. The protagonists in the presentation, will speak very different languages, Thai and Spanish, though the mediation of English required. However, all say they have a common language, which is the goal of working with dignity.