The International Union, United Automobile, Aerospace and Agricultural Implement Workers of America (UAW) recently urged the United States to shift its entire supply chain out of China.
The call comes after Sheffield Hallam University’s Helena Kennedy Centre for International Justice released a report highlighting widespread Chinese state-sponsored forced labor in the automotive supply chains in the Uyghur Region as well as previous evidence of human rights atrocities.
Up to 2 million Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities have been held in detainment camps in the Uyghur Region since 2017. Production facilities located near the detainment camps and Uyghur communities use forced labor. Human rights violations include cultural erasure, family separation, forced sterilization, physical and psychological abuse, and sexual violence.
“Forced labor and other human rights abuses are unacceptable in the modern global economy,” UAW President Ray Curry said. “The time is now for the auto industry to establish high-road supply chain models outside the Uyghur Region that protect labor and human rights and the environment. This includes significant re-investments in good union jobs in the U.S.”
Curry said the UAW urges global auto brands and suppliers to take steps together to ensure the supply chain is not tainted with Uyghur forced labor.