The Maquila Solidarity Network (MSN) based in Toronto describes itself as:
"A Canadian network promoting solidarity with groups in Mexico, Central America, Africa, and Asia organizing in maquiladora factories and export processing zones to improve conditions and win a living wage."
The network is the secretariat of the Ethical Trading Action Group (ETAG) in Canada. ETAG is an advocating coalition of faith, labour, and non-governmental organizations. They advocate to promote government policies, voluntary codes of conduct, and purchasing policies that promote humane labour practices based on accepted international standards.
A policy of the network is to launch campaigns to help achieve their stated goals. Some companies or countries being focused on by MSN for a campaign include:
Past campaigns of MSN have focused on the following companies among others:
Advocacy is an activity by an individual or group that aims to influence decisions within political, economic, and social institutions. Advocacy includes activities and publications to influence public policy, laws and budgets by using facts, their relationships, the media, and messaging to educate government officials and the public. Advocacy can include many activities that a person or organization undertakes, including media campaigns, public speaking, commissioning and publishing research. Lobbying is a form of advocacy where a direct approach is made to legislators on a specific issue or specific piece of legislation. Research has started to address how advocacy groups in the United States and Canada are using social media to facilitate civic engagement and collective action.
The Solidarity Federation, also known by the abbreviation SolFed, is a federation of class struggle anarchists active in Britain. The organisation advocates a strategy of anarcho-syndicalism as a method of abolishing capitalism and the state, and describes itself as a "revolutionary union". In 1994 it adopted its current name, having previously been the Direct Action Movement since 1979, and before that the Syndicalist Workers' Federation since 1950.
LabourStart is the news and campaigning website of the international trade union movement. It distributes news both via its own website and also through a news syndication service which is used by trade union websites around the world. There are newswires for specific languages, countries, regions, and some US states and every Canadian province. There are special newswires for online campaigns, women's labour news, and even a Health and Safety NewsWire run jointly with Hazards. The site has 638,000 unique visits per month as of February 2012.
The World Confederation of Labour (WCL) was an international labour organization founded in 1920 and based in Europe. Fascist governments of the 1930s repressed the federation and imprisoned many of its leaders, limiting operations until the end of World War II. In 2006 it became part of the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC), ending its existence as an independent organization.
MSN primarily refers to the web portal MSN by Microsoft, but it may also refer to:
Ethical Threads is a clothing manufacturer based in the United Kingdom. The company is wholly owned by the Battersea and Wandsworth Trades Union Council and the London Region GMB Union. The company was created as a source of ethical non-sweatshop clothing, and all producers follow international conventions of workers rights and will not employ child labour. Ethical Threads' organically grown cotton is supplied by the Vasudha Cotton Project in India to the Oeko-tex standard.
The Young Fabians is the under age 31 section of the Fabian Society, a socialist society in the United Kingdom that is affiliated with the Labour Party (UK). The Young Fabians operate as a membership-driven think tank that organises policy debates, research projects, publications, conferences, and international delegations. The organisation holds no collective position on policy.
Community unionism, also known as reciprocal unionism, refers to the formation of alliances between unions and non-labour groups in order to achieve common goals. These unions seek to organize the employed, unemployed, and underemployed. They press for change in the workplace and beyond, organizing around issues such as welfare reform, health care, jobs, housing, and immigration. Individual issues at work are seen as being a part of broader societal problems which they seek to address. Unlike trade unions, community union membership is not based on the workplace- it is based on common identities and issues. Alliances forged between unions and other groups may have a primary identity based on affiliations of religion, ethnic group, gender, disability, environmentalism, neighborhood residence, or sexuality.
CCJO René Cassin – more commonly known as René Cassin – is a charitable human rights NGO that works to promote and protect universal human rights, drawing on Jewish experiences and values. The organisation does this by campaigning for change in defined human rights areas through a combination of advocacy, policy analysis, public campaigning and education and building the capacity of activists and lawyers to promote and protect human rights. The organisation works in human rights areas that bear some relation to Jewish experience, such as discrimination, asylum, and genocide. The organisation holds special consultative status with the United Nations as a constituent organisation of the Consultative Council of Jewish Organisation (CCJO). The CCJO's first President was René Cassin, a principal drafter of the UN Declaration of Human Rights, who was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1968 in recognition of his work for human rights as a jurist, academic and statesman. The CCJO has been an active supporter of efforts to increase the effectiveness of the UN's human rights treaties and institutional mechanisms in the intervening decades. From the 1940s to the 1970s it was involved in the creation of the United Nations human rights instruments, which form the basis of the UN's human rights activities today.
The Council of Canadians is a Canadian non-profit organization that advocates for clean water, fair trade, green energy, public health care, and democracy. The organization is headquartered in Ottawa, Ontario with regional offices in Halifax, Toronto, Edmonton and Vancouver and a network of local chapters across the country.
The Clean Clothes Campaign (CCC) is the garment industry's largest alliance of labour unions and non-governmental organizations. The civil society campaign focuses on the improvement of working conditions in the garment and sportswear industries. Formed in the Netherlands in 1989, the CCC has campaigns in 15 European countries: Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Italy, Ireland, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and the United Kingdom. The CCC works with a partner network of more than 250 organizations around the world.
Anti-sweatshop movement refers to campaigns to improve the conditions of workers in sweatshops, i.e. manufacturing places characterized by low wages, poor working conditions and often child labor. It started in the 19th century in industrialized countries such as the United States, Australia, New Zealand and the United Kingdom to improve the conditions of workers in those countries.
The Centre for Research on Multinational Corporations, is an independent, non-profit research and network organisation working on social, ecological and economic issues related to sustainable development. Since 1973, the organisation investigates multinational corporations and the consequences of their activities for people and the environment around the world.
Worker road safety refers to the economic, societal, and legal ramifications of protecting workers from automobile-related injury, disability, and death. Road traffic crashes are a leading cause of occupational fatalities throughout the world, especially in developing countries. In addition to the suffering of the workers and their families, businesses and society also bear direct and indirect costs. These include increased insurance premiums, the threat of litigation, loss of an employee, and destruction of property.
The Confederation of Canadian Unions is a national trade union centre, a central labour body of independent unions in Canada.
The European Technology Assessment Group (ETAG) is a cooperative network of scientific institutions that carries out studies in the field of technology assessment on behalf of the European Parliament.
The Alliance for Workers' Liberty (AWL), also known as Workers' Liberty, is a Trotskyist group in Britain and Australia, which has been identified with the theorist Sean Matgamna throughout its history. It publishes the newspaper Solidarity.
Duncan Alexander Webb is a New Zealand lawyer and politician, currently serving as Chief Government Whip in the House of Representatives since 2022. He has been the Member of Parliament for Christchurch Central since 2017, representing the Labour Party.