Blog: Fair Wear’s Margreet Vrieling in Turkey

Today I was present at a Workplace Education Programme (WEP) training in Istanbul.

Our Turkish trainer Ceren Isat has been here several times already to conduct worker trainings. They were aimed at improving awareness on rights and duties of workers and enhance their knowledge and capacity on communication at the factory floor.

Labour standards
These trainings taught us they could be more effective if supervisors and management would also be involved. Interestingly enough, the factory itself asked FWF to come back and also train management staff. An opportunity we of course were happy to take.

In this first part Ceren and I focused on explaining why clothing brands are committed to FWF and its labour standards. We discussed the shared responsibility of a brand and a factory for working conditions.

Get married
The factory shared with us they had considered including a clause in the contracts for workers not to become married for a certain period of time. For some factories it’s a problem that women resign as soon as they get married. The factory decided not to go through with it, understanding that this decision would have been in violation with the non-discrimination standard.

It was really good to experience the pride that the factory takes in participating in FWF’s WEP training.

FWF’s Workplace Education Programme is an introduction to workplace awareness and dispute handling for workers, supervisors and management. It’s available for factories supplying FWF affiliates, in China, Bangladesh, India and Turkey.