The brand “No Chains” will be launched on 4th June, simultaneously, in Buenos Aires and Bangkok. The items produced by cooperatives The Alameda and Dignity Returns (Solidarity Coorperative Factory) will be sold throughout the world to promote decent work.

In Bangkok and Buenos Aires two parallel stories took place. In the Thai capital, workers in a textile company organised to recover the company where they worked, after closure, and formed a sewing cooperative. In Buenos Aires, the 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 symbolises 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 4th June. The first production will be shirts, printed with motifs that were the result of an international design competition organised 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 organisations, 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 organisations came together, a year ago at a meeting convened by Asia Monitor Resource Centre, an NGO based in Hong Kong that gathers organisations from 17 countries in Southeast Asia and promotes what in this region is seen as “decent work”. In March 2009, the people from the two organisations met in the meeting in bangkok and agreeed to launch a global brand.

With the agreement, both organisations took the first step in creating a “global network of sewing workers.” “The objective, rather than making a profit, is to globalise the struggle against slave labour, raise awareness among consumers and workers,” Gustavo Vera, the president of the cooperative The Alameda and one of the promoters of the global brand, said.

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 organisation and raise awareness about the struggles of workers.”

Thus, the partnership that shaped the brand No Chains intends as a starting point to join labour 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 videoconference.

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 organisations,” 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.

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, organisations 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 organisations 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 formalised, 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 organisation, 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.

The March 2009 meeting between social organisations, 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 organised labour 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’ mobilisation 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.

By Eduardo Videla

(Engl translation of Página 12 article), 4 April 2010

Source: http://ja-jp.facebook.com/note.php?note_id=397438474576&comments&ref=mf . The above is translation of the main of these articles.
UPI – http://espanol.upi.com/Noticias-destacadas/2010/04/05/Costureros-de-Argentina-y-Tailandia-contra-el-trabajo-esclavo/UPI-41511270447200/