Leveraging Brand Action on Labour Rights

MSN challenges apparel brands and manufacturers to take responsibility for worker rights abuses in their supplier factories and to make fundamental changes in their business model that perpetuates such abuses.

A central component of our work involves responding to reports of worker rights violations from trade union and labour and women’s rights organizations and calling on brands sourcing from those factories to remediate those violations. When companies are unwilling to take the necessary steps to achieve corrective action, we coordinate with local worker representatives, labour advocates, and international labour rights organizations to mobilize public pressure on the companies.

MSN facilitates communication between worker representatives, advocates and companies in order to achieve remedies for violations. We have produced educational curricula and materials and have provided training to strengthen the capacity of local labour and women’s organizations to pressure and effectively engage with international brands and manufacturers.

MSN also engages with brands and manufacturers -- directly and through multi-stakeholder initiatives such as the Americas Group -- to push for action on systemic issues in their global supply chains, such as lack of respect for freedom of association, endemic wage violations, precarious employment, and gender-based discrimination.

Supply Chain Transparency

MSN campaigns for greater supply chain transparency in the apparel and footwear sectors internationally, including the public disclosure of supplier factories' names, addresses and additional information. Increased supply chain transparency enables workers and labour rights organizations to determine which global apparel brands source from factories where labour abuses are taking place and to leverage those brands to address and remedy abuses.

Government Policy

MSN has engaged with the Canadian government on public policy proposals to ensure greater respect for workers’ rights in offshore factories producing apparel products for the Canadian market or for the government and its departments and crown corporations.

MSN has also joined the Canadian Network on Corporate Accountability (CNCA) in calling on the Canadian government to establish effective, independent, and legally binding mechanisms to ensure Canadian companies are held accountable for human rights abuses in their operations abroad, including in their global supply chains. This includes urging the Canadian government to give the Canadian Ombudsperson for Responsible Enterprise (CORE) sufficient powers of investigation to meaningfully investigate corporate harm, and campaigning for mandatory human rights and environmental due diligence legislation. 

MSN joined the CNCA in 2018, when the Canadian government unexpectedly added the garment sector to the list of Canadian industries operating abroad that would fall under the scope of the CORE.