Fair Wear Certified Clothing

The Fair Wear Foundation is a Dutch institution that works with brands, factories, unions, NGOs and sometimes governments to monitor and improve working conditions in 11 manufacturing countries in Asia, Europe and Africa.
FWF tracks the improvements made by the companies it works with, and through sharing expertise, social dialogue and strengthening industrial relations, FWF increases the effectiveness of the efforts made by companies. The more than 80 FWF member companies represent over 120 brands based in Europe. The Fair Wear Foundation is financially independent. An institution that wants to carefully monitor its members, should not depend on their money. Only a small part of FWF finances comes from membership fees.
If a company is reported for abuses, FWF not only consults the company management, but obtains its information from local NGOs and employees, interviewed outside the factories.

The labour standards identified by the Fair Wear Foundation include:

-voluntary work (no forced labor, ILO conventions 29 & 105)
- no discrimination on the basis of gender, race, colour, age, religion, trade union membership, nationality, social origin, deficiencies or handicaps (ILO Conventions 100 and 111)
- no child labor, the age for admission to employment must not be lower than the age of completion of compulsory schooling and in any case not lower than 15 years (ILO Convention 138)
-freedom of association and right to collective agreements (ILO Conventions 87, 98, 135, 143)
-payment of a living wage sufficient to meet the basic needs of workers and their families and to provide some discretionary income (ILO Conventions 26 and 131)
-reasonable working hours in accordance with laws and industry standards. In any case, workers shall not be regularly required to work for a period exceeding 48 hours per week and shall have at least one day of rest in each seven-day period. The excess shall be voluntary, shall not exceed 12 hours per week, shall not be regularly required and shall always be compensated at a premium rate (ILO Convention 1)
-safe and hygienic working conditions
-legal employment relationship