This December we urge you to take urgent and immediate action to support human rights activists who are being sued after they supported workers rights in India. We ask you to fax a letter to G-STAR asking them to make good on their promise to treat workers ethically and to use their influence to get the company to drop their case against the activists. Our second item is some good news! Adidas have published a list of their suppliers on their website.

Oxfam Australia is calling on as many individuals and organisations, as possible to fax letters to G-Star, Australia this week (19th-21st December). G-Star is the principle client of FFI/JKPL, who is suing human rights activists from the Clean Clothes Campaign (CCC), the India Committee of the Netherlands (ICN), and internet service provider Antenna for disseminating information about labour rights violations.

Please find a sample letter at the link below. To complete this urgent action cut and paste the letter into a word document, add the date, sign the letter, then fax to the number provided at the top of the sample letter. Please feel free to adapt the letter. If you wear G-Star be sure to let the company know you are a customer. We ask you to send a fax because we believe is more likely to be received and read by G-Star than an email. Please let us know when you have sent the fax – by e-mail is fine.

In new developments on December 1 an Indian court ordered the arrest of the activists from CCC, ICN and Antenna. On December 6, G-Star finally joined other brands in severing its business relationship with FFI/JKPL however it is important G-Star find work for the affected workers. Write to G-Star and tell them to make good on their promise to treat workers ethically. More info can be found on the Clean Clothes website. 

This is an important, high profile case that has at its heart the right of freedom of expression and the right of workers to organise and speak out about violations and abuses all over the world.

Congratulations to everyone who wrote letters to and lobbied adidas over the past months and years calling on the company to be transparent by publicly disclosing the list of factories that produce for adidas. Your efforts have been successful and adidas have now published a Global Supplier List on their website here. 

Please join us in continuing to encourage adidas to create fairer conditions in their supply chains through (amongst other things) retaining production in unionised factories, providing incentives to supplier factories who respect the legal human rights of workers and resolving the outstanding issues for Spotec, Dong Joe and Tong Yang factory workers.

Well done. This move by adidas shows that your letters and campaigning has an effect.

Seasons Greetings and a Happy New Year from the Labour Rights team.