In the late 1990s the sportswear industry was under pressure over conditions in the Asian factories that made its shoes and clothes. One response was the Global Alliance for Workers and Communities, a partnership of Nike, the Gap, the International Youth Foundation, the World Bank and others that from 1999 to 2004 surveyed tens of thousands of workers in Thailand, Indonesia, Vietnam and China about wages, hours, harassment and what they wanted from their jobs. Its Indonesia report of 2001, which documented verbal abuse and forced overtime in Nike contract plants, was one of the first times a brand published critical findings about its own suppliers.
The voluntary era
The Global Alliance was typical of its time: brand-funded, voluntary, focused on assessment and training rather than enforcement. Alongside it grew the factory-auditing industry, codes of conduct and multi-stakeholder bodies such as the Fair Labor Association (1999) and the Ethical Trading Initiative in Britain. Critics, including many labour groups, argued that audits were announced in advance, that findings rarely changed purchasing practices, and that the underlying problem was the price and delivery pressure brands themselves imposed.
What changed
The 2013 Rana Plaza collapse in Bangladesh, which killed more than 1,100 garment workers, ended the credibility of audit-only approaches. It produced the legally binding Accord on Fire and Building Safety, under which brands paid for inspections and remediation, and it pushed governments to legislate. The UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights of 2011 gave lawmakers a framework: companies must carry out human rights due diligence across their supply chains.
Due diligence laws
France’s duty of vigilance law came into force in 2017, Germany’s Supply Chain Act in 2023, and the EU’s Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive was adopted in 2024, obliging large companies to identify, prevent and remedy human rights and environmental harms in their chains, with civil liability for failures; its scope and timeline were narrowed again in 2025 under the EU’s simplification agenda. The United States has taken a different route, banning imports made with forced labour, most prominently under the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act of 2021.
What workers say
Surveys of garment and footwear workers still report the same priorities the Global Alliance recorded in 2000: wages that cover living costs, predictable hours, and a way to raise complaints without being fired. The legal tools are stronger than they were; whether purchasing practices have changed remains the open question.
This site is an independent publication on energy, climate and global issues. It is not the former Global Alliance for Workers and Communities and holds none of its reports.
