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 and Gap’s own human rights standards for suppliers. An investigation by the Worker Rights Consortium (WRC) found that, in July 2024, a Gap supplier factory in Haiti, called The Willbes,[1] terminated four pregnant workers and nine other employee union leaders in violation of these workers’ rights under Haitian labor law and Gap’s code of conduct for suppliers.
The WRC has called on Gap to require the factory to reinstate the 13 unlawfully fired employees, with back pay. Gap, however, has sided with its supplier, which claims, improbably, that it gave the Haitian workers the opportunity to continue their employment but that all these pregnant workers and all the other workers who were union leaders voluntarily chose to be fired, instead—a claim the WRC investigated and determined to be false.
The firings caused four women workers who were pregnant at the time to be denied the maternity benefits they would have otherwise been legally entitled to around the time of childbirth, the equivalent of 12 weeks paid leave. Haitian garment workers are the poorest of any workers in export apparel manufacturing in the Western Hemisphere and the country’s unemployment rate is among the highest in the region.
The firings took place when Gap’s supplier shutdown two of the factory’s four production buildings and laid off more than 900 of its workers. According to employees interviewed by the WRC, some workers in the buildings that were closed were given the opportunity to continue their employment in the portion of the factory that remained open.
Haitian law requires that, in the case of such a layoff, priority for retaining employment must be given to workers who are pregnant[2] or are union leaders responsible for protecting the rights of other workers.[3] The WRC’s investigation found that Gap’s supplier violated these laws by failing to protect the employment of workers who were pregnant or were union representatives in the July 2024 layoff.
As noted, Gap’s supplier factory has claimed that, at the time of the layoff, the 13 fired workers who were pregnant or were union leaders were given the opportunity to transfer to the factory’s operations that remained open, but, the factory alleges, all 13 chose instead to be dismissed. Factory management pointed to documents that were signed by the pregnant workers and union leaders stating that they each declined to continue their employment.
The Better Work Haiti factory auditing program, in which The Willbes participates, supported the factory’s version of events. Better Work Haiti refused, however, to make its auditor available to be interviewed by the WRC regarding her inquiry into the firings.
The WRC interviewed the fired pregnant workers and union leaders who testified that the factory management never told them that they could transfer to the factory’s remaining operations but, instead, informed them that there was no way for them to continue their employment with the company. According to the workers, they were simply told that they were being dismissed and that, to receive legally due severance, they had to sign a letter that they did not understand and that was not read to them. The workers informed the WRC that they believed these letters were simply an acknowledgment that they were being involuntarily terminated.
The Haitian Ministry of Social Affairs has confirmed that the fired workers were paid their legally due severance, however, it has not responded to complaints from the pregnant workers and union leaders that they were not told the contents of the letters they were asked to sign as a condition of receiving these payments.
Gap, itself, claims that it investigated the firings of the pregnant workers and the union leaders and concluded that their rights were not violated. However, Gap made no attempt to contact any of the fired pregnant workers and worker union leaders before reaching this determination. The WRC engaged extensively with the fired workers, The Willbes’s factory management, and Gap, itself, as part of the WRC’s investigation.
The firings of the pregnant workers and union leaders came only one year after workers at the factory established a union affiliated with the Haitian labor federation, Union of Textile and Apparel Workers / Workers’ Struggle (known by its Haitian Kreyol acronym, “SOTA-BO”) to address reported harassment by supervisors and health and safety issues at the factory, including lack of clean drinking water.
The dismissal of the four pregnant workers and nine worker union leaders violated not only Haitian law but also Gap’s Code of Vendor Conduct,[4] which requires factories supplying Old Navy and Gap’s other brands (Athleta, Banana Republic) to comply with national labor laws and respect workers’ right to freedom of association. The WRC calls on Gap to require its business partner, The Willbes, to remedy these violations by offering these 13 workers reinstatement of employment and payment of back wages (including the paid maternity benefits lost by the four workers who were pregnant at the time of their termination) from the date of their dismissals to the date such an offer of reinstatement is made. To date, Gap continues to defend its supplier’s actions and refuses to require the factory to take corrective action. More than a year after they were illegally dismissed, only one of the 13 fired workers has returned to the factory, and none have been paid a cent of back wages.
[1] More information about The Willbes is available on the company’s website, http://www.willbes.com/html/business1/en/view.do.
[2] Article 330 of the Haitian Labor Code prohibits employers from dismissing employees who are pregnant without obtaining prior approval from the country’s Ministry of Labor. It is undisputed that The Willbes did not obtain such prior approval before terminating the four pregnant workers.
[3] Haiti has ratified International Labour Organization (ILO) Conventions 87 (Freedom of Association and Protection of the Right to Organise) and 98 (Right to Organise and Collective Bargaining), both of which, along with Haiti’s Constitution and Labor Code, protect workers’ rights to join, participate in, and be represented by labor unions. To protect this right, the Haitian Ministry of Labor, in accordance with ILO Recommendation 143 (Workers’ Representatives), has directed employers conducting staff reductions to give priority to worker representatives for continued employment.
[4] Gap’s Code of Vendor Conduct is available at https://www.gapinc.com/CMSPages/GetAzureFile.aspx?path=~%5Cgapcorporatesite%5Cmedia%5Cimages%5Cvalues%5Csustainability%5Cdocuments%5Cgap-inc-code-of-vendor-conduct.pdf&hash=ccf11a639f50d9b945e663b5062973f1721cb84e418a98c4b9dccfa5b81c0577.