The IWW in Ireland have initiated a series of solidarity pickets at Lidl stores across the country and internationally with International Confederation of Labour (ICL-CIT) from Saturday 15th August to 15th September to raise awareness of the treatment of garment workers who create some of the clothing sold here. Today our members have continued picketing Lidl stores in Derry once again as part of a month long seriesof international actions in support of Garment Workers in Bangladesh.
The IWW has written to Lidl to formally highlight that their supplier, Dragon Group, has illegally terminated the contracts of almost 6000 workers, mostly at their Dragon Sweater factory in Dhaka.
Despite attempted negotiations and protests since the beginning of March the workers are left struggling to obtain their overdue wages as well as bonus and compensation payments. We have also been informed that the Dragon Group factory is simply relocating while citing economic slowdown and losses due to the Covid-19 as reason for closure.
We have asked Lidl to take action to quickly resolve the current impasse, which violates local labour laws and contravenes their own code of conduct.
The IWW firmly believes that no company should be allowed to leave workers in their supply chain open to exploitation and that customers want to make informed choices regarding the provenance of their purchases.
We recognise how the rights and conditions for workers in one country affect those elsewhere and in the interests of international working class solidarity we intend to make public and amplify the demands of the GWTUC members and Garment workers.
We invite supporters to join us in highlighting how companies like are profiting from the exploitation of our fellow workers in Bangladesh.
We invite the trade union movement to echo the call for solidarity with the GWTUC to help force the bosses of Dragon Sweaters to agree to the demands of the GWTUC.
You can send additional messages of support and solidarity to the Garment Workers Trade Union Center at gwtucint@gmail.com