After a surge in wage theft allowed by piece-rate work and spurred by the Covid19 pandemic, California introduced a new law set to guarantee hourly wages. A victory for activists and organizations who campaigned for these changes.
MAPPING THE COVID RIGHTS ROLL BACK
Honduras
Contracorriente
People sick or incapacitated due to working conditions fired with the pandemic as the excuse
USA
Jacobin
Work and Death in Sri Lanka’s Garment Industry
USA
opendemocracy
Report says soldiers shot three dead at Myanmar factory making US cowboy boots
México
Underground
Pandemic, labor abuse in the garment industry
Bangladesh
Dhaka Tribune
How the West’s thirst for fast fashion is destroying lives
Los Angeles, California
Capital & Main
Can California’s New Garment Worker Law Rein in Abuses?
INVESTIGATIONS
How the West’s thirst for fast fashion is destroying lives
From unjustified laid-offs to sexual harassment, the sudden halt to purchases from developed countries such as the UK has caused a massive wave of human misery in Bangladesh, a country almost entirely devoted to the garment manufacturing.
Work and Death in Sri Lanka’s Garment Industry
The belief that extreme measures are needed to get “back on track” has normalized draconian behaviour from managers towards workers in garment factories, while sanitary protection remains largely insufficient in the face of a third Covid-19 wave.
People sick or incapacitated due to working conditions fired with the pandemic as the excuse
Pain and numbness in the back, arms and shoulders are common ills among garment workers in Honduras due to the poor occupational health practices in the workplaces. In the midst of the pandemic, some employers took advantage of the crisis and got rid of injured workers.
Pandemic, labor abuse in the garment industry
As soon as Covid19 spread and went global, the economic pressure on the garment sector pushed workers around the world into labor abuses, including attacks against unions, inhumane productivity goals and verbal abuse.
Report says soldiers shot three dead at Myanmar factory making US cowboy boots
A labour rights organisation says the soldiers also arrested 17 outside the shoe factory – for asking for wages
About us
The Journo Colectivo seeks to shed light on the pressing global issues of our time through cross-border journalism.
We assembled a group of journalists during the Covid-19 pandemic, moved by a shared interest in investigating the harsh living and working conditions endured by garment workers in some of the main producing countries (Bangladesh, Myanmar, Sri Lanka, Guatemala, Honduras, plus Los Angeles in the USA), located primarily in the Global South.
After securing funding from the National Geographic Society, we carried out this investigation throughout the first half of 2021. The resulting articles have been published in media outlets from the USA, UK, Bangladesh, Mexico and Honduras.
Based on these results, we are eager to keep doing high-quality cross-border journalism in the same spirit that brought us together.
Tansy Hoskins is a journalist covering the garment industry and the author of Foot Work – What Your Shoes Are Doing To The World and Stitched Up – The Anti-Capitalist Book of Fashion
Juan Mayorga is a Mexican independent journalist. His focus is environmental issues where they intersect with social and economic concerns.
Dil Afrose Jahan is a journalist based in Bangladesh where she specialises in covering human rights, migration, crisis and women’s and children’s issues.
Nidia Bautista is a journalist and PhD student in Chicana/o and Central American Studies at UCLA. Nidia works as a journalist in Latin America and the U.S. covering immigration, human rights issues and gender violence.
Contracorriente is a media outlet based in Honduras that strives for in-depth and investigative journalism, as well as for transmedia formats. Founded in 2015, it aims to tell the story of Honduras in a way that is fair for the people and holds the authorities accountable.