#PAYUP

10-30-20 – After months of pressure by the #PayUp campaign, C&A agrees to #PayUp for more than $1.5  billion in completed and in-process orders placed prior to the pandemic in full and on time. Unlike competitors H&M and Zara, the billionaire-owned fast fashion chain took seven months to #PayUp, a decision that has “no doubt been costly to many suppliers,” notes the Worker Rights Consortium. 

3-30-20 – C&A cancels and puts on hold at least $166 million worth of orders in Bangladesh, the largest known sum of any company other than Primark. Labor rights experts place the total value of money owed globally at upwards of $1 billion.

GO TRANSPARENT

8-18-21 – C&A has committed to, and fully complies with the Transparency Pledge, disclosing its tier 1 list of cut and sew factories. The company also goes above and beyond this basic ask by disclosing all of its tier 2 (printing and embroidery units, laundries, fabric mills and dye houses) as well. This is more than can be said for most fashion brands and C&A thus receives a yellow slash for its progress toards Go Transparent.

To receive a “YES” for Action 3 on the PayUp Fashion Tracker, C&A must a) additionally disclose its tier 3 (fiber and yarn producers) and tier 4 (raw materials) suppliers; b) disclose the wages of the lowest-earning workers at each factory and c) share audit and remediation reports publicly, and make these findings available to the garment workers in the audited factories.

SIGN ENFORCEABLE CONTRACTS

8-25-21 C&A leads in signing onto a strong new enforceable Accord agreement on workplace safety. The agreement meets all of our demands, including individual accountability for brands, an independent Secretariat, and expansion into new countries. Thus, we’ve given C&A the designation of “Brand Meets Some Conditions” for meeting part of this demand. To receive a “Yes” for this demand, C&A will need to overhaul their purchase order contracts to adopt the Buyer Code of Conduct, support a humane pace of production and dignified wages for makers, as one of the drivers of workplace safety disasters is brands, particularly when they force factories to produce clothing at prices that are too low to support sustainable and ethical production. 

8-12-21 – C&A has made no commitment to extend and expand the Bangladesh Accord on Fire & Building Safety, which has protected the lives of millions of garment makers in Bangladesh over eight years. They are on the negative side of our Accord Tracker and their lack of commitment to this binding agreement gets them a “No” under our Sign Enforceable Contracts action.