Holding corporations accountable. Protecting worker rights.

WRC News

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Tariff Turmoil: Will Fashion Brands Step Up or Will They Step on Workers?

Brands face calls to refrain from pushing the costs of tariffs onto suppliers. Workers’ rights and livelihoods are at risk if brands fail to act responsibly now.

So Far in 2025: WRC Investigations Have Secured $13.1 Million in Back Pay

Supported by the WRC and their unions, 10,000 garment workers in eight countries are finally getting the money they legally earned.

How we work

Enforceable standards

In global manufacturing, regulation usually means self-regulation, with brands inspecting their own suppliers under voluntary standards. The WRC promotes and enforces binding labor standards, the only kind that ever work in the real world.

Worker-Centered investigations

We interview workers away from their factories, without management’s knowledge, so workers can speak openly, with no fear of reprisal. This enables the WRC to uncover labor abuses that brands and their auditing organizations routinely ignore.

Full restitution for rights violations

The WRC compels brands and their suppliers around the world to remedy the abuses we’ve exposed: we’ve achieved tens of millions of dollars in back pay, reinstatement for thousands of unjustly fired workers, and transformative safety improvements.

Systemic change in supply chains

Achieving decent conditions in supply chains requires systemic reform: supplanting voluntary industry promises with enforceable agreements worldwide and obliging brands to end the price pressure on suppliers that impels abuses. We drive strategies to advance this agenda.

Gap Allowed Haiti Factory to Swindle Pregnant Workers, Carry Out Mass Firing of Union Leaders

US retailer Gap is refusing to require a Haitian factory that makes clothing for its Old Navy stores to reinstate and compensate women workers who were cheated out of maternity benefits after being dismissed during pregnancy, as well as leaders of a factory union who were fired en masse, in violation of Haitian labor laws…

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Lucky Brand Joins AEO and Puma to Help Workers Owed $1.5 Million by Guatemalan Subcontractor

The WRC is pleased to report that Lucky Brand has made a humanitarian contribution of $500,000 to assist garment workers at the Industrial Hana factory in Guatemala, which was, prior to its closure, a subcontractor for one of Lucky Brand’s direct apparel suppliers. As the WRC has previously reported, the Industrial Hana factory closed in…

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Workers with signs concerning freedom of association violations at Wing Star Shoes

ASICS and MUJI Fail to Remedy Human Rights Abuses at Cambodian Supplier

Japanese Brands Refuse to Hold Supplier Accountable for Wrongful Imprisonment of Worker Leader ASICS and MUJI continue to turn their backs on egregious human rights violations at their Cambodian supplier, Wing Star Shoes. The factory wrongfully imprisoned union leader Chea Chan for more than six months on baseless, retaliatory charges—an outrageous breach of Cambodian labor…

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Photo credit: Marcel Crozet / ILO

Cintas Offshores Unionbusting to Haiti

Leading Uniform Maker Won’t Require Haitian Supplier Factory to Rehire Worker Leaders Despite political chaos, rampant gang violence, and a near total breakdown in the rule of law, Haiti has remained a significant production hub for employee workwear for the US market. This has been due to trade preferences and because the poverty-stricken country has…

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