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J.C. Penney: Don’t break your promise to families of workers who died making your clothes
  1. Signatures
    95,868 out of 150,000
    Petitioning
    1. Executive Vice President, General Counsel and Secretary (+ 2 others)
      Petitioning
      close
      • Executive Vice President, General Counsel and Secretary (Janet Dhillon)
      • Global Compliance Manager (Lesa Hubbard)
      • VP Quality and Services (Joan Mudget)
  2. Created By
    International Labor Rights Forum
About this Petition Petition Letter Petition Updates
How We Won

Oct 18, 2011

After hearing from nearly 100,000 Change.org members, JC Penney has made sufficient payment into worker compensation fund, and is taking on a leadership role in improving fire safety standards in Bangladesh. Thanks to everyone for your support of this cause!

ILRF will continue to follow this issue to make sure that the Hameem group and industry leaders in Bangladesh pay in their part. We will also continue to encourage JCPenney to take a leadership role on fire safety initiatives in Bangladesh.

 

On December 14, 2010, 30 Bangladeshi factory workers were burned alive when an easily preventable fire broke out in the unsafe, multi-story sweatshop in which they were working. These men and women worked for “That’s It Sportswear” producing clothing for famous U.S. brands.

Thanks to pressure from Change.org members, seven of the eight brands (including J.C. Penney) doing business with the factory owners – the Hameem Group – signed a commitment to ensure fair compensation for the injured workers and surviving family members of the workers who died and to take meaningful steps to stop the epidemic of workplace deaths at US brands’ apparel factories in Bangladesh. Now J.C. Penney has shamefully broken this pledge. Today, six of the eight brands continue negotiating in good faith to establish an adequate worker compensation fund and sustainable fire safety initiatives. J.C. Penney, however, has dropped out.

We need your help to send a message to J.C. Penney to honor the commitments they made in January.

In Bangladesh, nearly 500 workers have died in factory fires during the past five years. Establishing effective initiatives to prevent fires like this from occurring again is critical. Nothing less than workers’ lives are at stake. Don’t let J.C. Penney walk away from workers in Bangladesh.

Why People Are Signing
Recent Signatures

Don’t break your promise to families of workers who died making your clothes

Greetings,

I am writing to urge a just response from J.C. Penney to the fire that took the lives of 30 workers and injured hundreds more at “That’s It Sportswear Factory” in Ashulia Industrial Park in Bangladesh on December 14, 2010.

J.C. Penney has shamefully broken the public commitment it made in January to compensate the victims’ families and to finally take real steps to stop these fires. As you know, other companies continue to negotiate in good faith with labor rights advocates to establish a fair compensation for workers and a meaningful fire safety program.

How can you walk away from the commitment you made to your customers and the broader public? How can you walk away from the workers who produce your garments and the families of the workers who died in the fire?

U.S. consumers want a substantive and meaningful response to incidents like this. More than 65,000 people from 71 countries called on you to act earlier in 2011 so that tragedies like this one never happen again.

I support the large consortium of Bangladeshi and international groups calling on J.C. Penney to provide just compensation to the victims and their families and launch thorough, independent, well funded and publicly transparent safety inspections of all multi-story supplier factories in Bangladesh in the supply chain of each brand and retailer. I call on J.C. Penney to be a leader on fire safety in Bangladesh.

Thank you for your time, and I look forward to your immediate response to this critical issue.

[Your name]

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