“Omnibus proposal: EU Commission bows to big business, betrays workers”

With the publication today of its Omnibus proposal for the simplification of corporate accountability and sustainability instruments, including the Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive (CSDDD), the European Commission is backpedaling on its commitment to just and sustainable value chains, warns the Clean Clothes Campaign (CCC).

…in an unprecedented change of direction, the President of the Commission decided to re-open the CSDDD text late last year under the guise of a ‘simplification effort’…

"The text just tabled disproves previous statements by the Commission reassuring that simplification is not de-regulation. Clearly, the new trend in Europe is marching to the tune of big business, even at the cost of undoing the Union’s own laws," said Muriel Treibich, Lobby and Advocacy Coordinator for the Clean Clothes Campaign.

The changes proposed reduce the number of companies covered by the law, re-define the value chain scope, asking companies only to check their immediate suppliers, and weaken judicial and administrative enforcement procedures.

"Human rights and environmental due diligence is useless to workers if it is toothless", said Kalpona Akter, founder of the Bangladesh Center for Workers Solidarity, a member of the Clean Clothes Campaign…