[CTC] Fwd: Advisory: Cathy Feingold, AFL-CIO International Director, Rep. McGovern + End Uyghur Forced Labor Coalition Zoom Call to Condemn Corporate Lobbying To Weaken Bill

[Arthur Stamoulis]

---------- Forwarded message ---------
From: Catherine Feingold <cfeingold at aflcio.org>
Date: Mon, Dec 14, 2020, 6:55 PM
Subject: Fwd: Advisory: Cathy Feingold, AFL-CIO International Director,
Rep. McGovern + End Uyghur Forced Labor Coalition Zoom Call to Condemn
Corporate Lobbying To Weaken Bill
To: Arthur Stamoulis <arthur at citizenstrade.org>



FYI for list....
Please see a press conference we are joining tomorrow regarding our support
for the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act.

---------- Forwarded message ---------
From: Gonzalo Salvador <gsalvador at aflcio.org>
Date: Mon, Dec 14, 2020 at 5:56 PM
Subject: Advisory: Cathy Feingold, AFL-CIO International Director, Rep.
McGovern + End Uyghur Forced Labor Coalition Zoom Call to Condemn Corporate
Lobbying To Weaken Bill
To: Gonzalo Salvador <gsalvador at aflcio.org>


Rep. Jim McGovern + End Uyghur Forced Labor Coalition Condemn Corporate
Lobbying To Weaken Bill

Washington D.C.— Representative Jim McGovern (D-MA), the AFL-CIO, the
Campaign for Uyghurs, the Worker Rights Consortium, and Global Labor
Justice-International Labor Rights Forum will hold a press briefing on the
Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act (S.3471), the history of Uyghur
oppression and forced labor, and corporations lobbying against the bill.

An estimated one to three million Uyghur and other Turkic peoples have been
rounded up into labor camps where they’ve been subjected to sterilization,
violence, and forced to denounce their religion and culture. 20% of the
world’s cotton comes from the region, meaning 1-in-5 cotton garments are
tainted by forced labor.

The bill is designed to end the use of Uyghur forced labor in corporate
supply chains by banning all imports with content from the Xinjiang Uyghur
Autonomous Region (otherwise known as the Uyghur Region) — unless the brand
importing the product can prove it was not made with forced labor. On
September 22nd, the US House of Representatives overwhelmingly passed the
Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act (H.R. 6210) 406 to 3; Representative
McGovern is the bill sponsor, and chairs the Congressional-Executive
Commission on China.

In the last several weeks, news sources have reported that Apple
<https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2020/11/20/apple-uighur/>, Nike,
and Coca-Cola
<https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/29/business/economy/nike-coca-cola-xinjiang-forced-labor-bill.html>
are lobbying the U.S. Senate to weaken or halt the Uyghur Forced Labor
Prevent Act.

When: Tuesday, December 15th at 11am

Where: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/83833894779

Who: Cathy Feingold (Director of the International Department at the
AFL-CIO), Representative Jim McGovern (D-MA), Rushan Abbas (Executive
Director of the Campaign for Uyghurs), Scott Nova (Executive Director at
the Worker Rights Consortium), Allison Gill (Forced Labor Program Director
at Global Labor Justice-International Labor Rights Forum)

What: End Uyghur Forced Labor Coalition Press Briefing on Corporate
Lobbying Against Uyghur Forced Labor Prevent Act

Background:

On September 17th, three of the members of the 280 + groups that make up
the Coalition to End Uyghur Forced Labor
<https://enduyghurforcedlabour.org/> testified before the House Ways &
Means Committee. Campaign for Uyghurs, the Workers Rights Consortium, and
the AFL-CIO are part of a coalition calling on apparel brands to divest
from the Xinjiang Region of China.

Earlier this year, The Wall Street Journal
<https://www.wsj.com/articles/auditors-say-they-no-longer-will-inspect-labor-conditions-at-xinjiang-factories-11600697706>
reported that many major auditing firms have agreed to cease labor
compliance audits in the region, recognizing that the only purpose such
audits serve in such a repressive environment is to give a false impression
of due diligence.

Last week, the United States Customs and Border Protection (CBP) announced
that it will block imports of all products containing cotton produced by
the Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps (XPCC), in response to
widespread concerns over the use of forced labor in China’s Xinjiang Uyghur
Autonomous Region (XUAR). The XPCC, a Chinese government paramilitary body,
controls approximately a third of the region’s cotton production— six
percent of all cotton globally.


###

About the Coalition to End Forced Labour in the Uyghur Region:



The Coalition to End Forced Labour in the Uyghur Region
<http://www.enduyghurforcedlabour.org/> is a coalition of civil society
organisations and trade unions united to end state-sponsored forced labour
and other egregious human rights abuses against people from the Uyghur
Region in China, known to local people as East Turkistan.

The coalition is calling on leading brands and retailers to ensure that
they are not supporting or benefiting from the pervasive and extensive
forced labour of the Uyghur population and other Turkic and Muslim-majority
peoples, perpetrated by the Chinese government. Right now, there is near
certainty that any brand sourcing apparel, textiles, yarn or cotton from
the Uyghur Region is profiting from human rights violations, including
forced labour, both in the Uyghur Region and more broadly throughout China.



We are asking brands and retailers to exit the Uyghur Region at every level
of their supply chain, from cotton to finished products, to prevent the use
of forced labour of Uyghurs and other groups in other facilities, and to
end relationships with suppliers supporting the forced labour system.
Brands and retailers must take each of these steps in order to fulfil their
corporate responsibility obligations to respect human rights as defined in
international principles such as the UN Guiding Principles on Business and
Human Rights.



The coalition urges national governments to strengthen and enforce existing
laws prohibiting trade in goods produced using forced labour, and to adopt
and implement binding laws requiring human rights due diligence in supply
chains. The coalition is further committed to working with multilateral
organisations like the ILO and OECD to use their mechanisms to end forced
labour in the Uyghur Region as well as forced labour and human trafficking
of people from these communities.



We call on governments, MSIs, brands, and other stakeholders to join us in
challenging this abusive system and together build the economic and
political pressure on the Chinese government to end forced labour in the
Uyghur Region.
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