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31 January, 2011
Release from International Textile, Garment, and Leather Workers’ Federation (ITGLWF)
The Global Union representing workers in the garment industry is convened a meeting of jeans’ brands and retailers to raise awareness of the need to eliminate the use of sandblasting, a method used to give jeans a fashionably faded look.
Patrick Itschert, General Secretary of the International Textile, Garment, and Leather Workers’ Federation (ITGLWF), said, “Sandblasting is an extremely harmful process which can cause silicosis. The meeting on January 20 in Brussels provides an opportunity to hear contributions by experts, to examine best practices, to exchange points of view and to discuss further steps for action.
ITGLWF General Secretary Patrick Itschert
“In Turkey, the world’s third largest exporter of jeans and the only country so far where the impact of sandblasting on the health of workers has come under scrutiny, 550 former sandblasting workers have been diagnosed with silicosis since 2005 and 46 have so far died of the disease. These officially-documented cases are just the tip of the iceberg both in Turkey and globally.
“Clearly, government regulation is needed to ban the process or to enforce existing bans. However, in the absence of effective government regulation brands and retailers urgently need to take voluntary action.
“Even if brands and retailers adopt rigorous standards regarding sandblasting, there will always be suppliers that do not enforce those standards, thus putting unsuspecting workers at risk. Therefore the best policy is to ban sandblasting altogether in the garment industry. Several leading brands have already done so and we believe others should now do the same”.
Speakers at the meeting, entitled “Towards the Elimination of Sandblasting in the Garment Industry,” were trade union health and safety experts as well as brands that have taken the step to ban sandblasting.