World Monitors is a founding member of The Fair Factories Clearinghouse (FFC), a not-for-profit, collaborative industry effort involving retail and consumer brands to facilitate responsible sourcing through the creation of a technology platform for managing and sharing compliance information. Other founding members include Reebok International Ltd., Macy's Merchandising Group, Mark's Work Wearhouse, Hudson's Bay Company, Wet Seal, the National Retail Federation and the Retail Council of Canada.

Since its founding in 1999, WMI has been involved in the efforts to improve workplace conditions in off-shore factories used by apparel, footwear and toy companies. It has worked with Reebok International in several of Reebok's most innovative efforts to address abusive workplace conditions. Our research and development efforts in this area included organizing a conference on November 5, 2002 in NYC called, "Making It Right: Lessons and Solutions in Global Sourcing and Labor Issues" sponsored by Li & Fung. The conference exposed the urgent need to create a better way for US companies systematically to find and use factories that are monitored for human rights and workplace standards.

World Monitors, with assistance from a grant from the U.S. Department of State Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor, provides operational and strategic support for the FFC.

The FFC objectives are to:

• Improve the availability, comprehensiveness and standardization of factory social compliance audits through the use of a global data management system to track workplace conditions.

• Facilitate the exchange of information concerning factory social compliance audits from internal and external reports without requiring adherence to a particular social compliance audit standard.

• Eliminate the duplication of audits through the sharing of social compliance information.

• Advance and promote education and knowledge about the current status of workplace conditions and steps that companies can take to improve workplace conditions.

Fair Factories Press Release

To visit the website of the FFC please go to www.fairfactories.org