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Garment Workers Face Mounting Forced Labor Risks
1000+ Interviews Reveal Destructive Brand Practices Contributed to Unpaid Earnings, Threats and Abuse, Skyrocketing Debt, and a Dangerous Lack of PPE New research by the University of Sheffield and the Worker Rights Consortium finds that declining income and working conditions for workers in garment supply chains amid the Covid-19 pandemic has increased workers’ vulnerability to…
Brands and Unions Have Three More Months to Agree on an International Binding Agreement for Garment Worker Safety
by Clean Clothes Campaign, Global Labor Justice – International Labor Rights Forum, Maquila Solidarity Network, and Worker Rights Consortium Global unions and negotiating signatory companies have announced that they agreed upon a three month extension of the Accord on Fire and Building Safety in Bangladesh to allow for more time to conclude negotiations on a…
Brands Should Consult Unions before Resuming Sourcing in Myanmar
Within the past two weeks, several apparel brands that put a pause on sourcing from Myanmar in response to February’s military coup in the country resumed their sourcing, drawn by cheap prices for apparel and a labor movement constrained by arbitrary arrests and violent suppression from the police and military. Despite the military’s unwillingness to…
Buyers Pulled Orders When Migrant Burmese Garment Workers Spoke Out in Defense of Their Rights, Now They Are Making Workers Whole
Despite the inclusion of nondiscrimination protections based on nationality in Thai labor law, Mae Sot is known as a black hole of labor abuse for the many Burmese migrant workers who produce apparel there. Burmese workers in Mae Sot face a range of workplace violations that often go unreported and uncorrected due to their status…
Remaining Safety Hazards in Bangladeshi Factories Show That Apparel Brands Must Not Abandon Binding Safety Program
In the week of the World Day for Health and Safety at Work, the witness signatories to the Bangladesh Accord have published a report showing that deadly safety hazards remain at factories producing for major apparel brands and retailers. The Accord—the most successful safety program in the contemporary history of apparel supply chains—is set to…
Why would leading apparel brands and retailers—like Zara, Tommy Hilfiger, and American Eagle—walk away from a life-saving inspection program that is the only effective worker safety initiative in their global supply chains?
The Rana Plaza apparel factory collapse killed more workers than any other manufacturing disaster in human history. The 1,134 known deaths in that building on April 24, 2013, a culmination of more than a decade of mass fatality incidents in Bangladesh’s sprawling garment industry—all in factories producing for leading global brands. The most important thing…
Report: Pandemic-Era Severance Theft at Garment Factories Exceeds Half a Billion Dollars
WRC Finds Violations in Supply Chains of Gap, Next, Walmart, and MoreFashion Brands Urged to Form Severance Guarantee Fund to Pay Fired Workers’ Stolen Earnings Tens of thousands of garment workers at factories producing for leading fashion brands, who were fired during the Covid-19 pandemic, are being denied terminal compensation, in violation of the law…
Coalition to End Forced Labour in the Uyghur Region Warns Corporations Not to Trade their Human Rights Principles for Market Access
WORLDWIDE — As global fashion brands face commercial retaliation in China over their statements against the use of forced Uyghur labour, the advocates leading the campaign against forced labour in the Uyghur Region are calling on companies not to trade their human rights principles to hang onto commercial advantage.
Lesotho Garment Worker Program to Combat Gender-Based Violence Begins
by: Carolyn Butler, Solidarity Center A worker-centered, precedent-setting program that targets gender-based violence and harassment (GBVH) in four Lesotho garment factories is now in effect for as many as 10,000 workers producing jeans for the global market. The program inauguration on Friday was marked by a social media campaign, including SMS text blasts to garment…
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$1.3 Million Wage Theft from Salvadoran Workers Who Made Disney and Grey’s Anatomy Scrubs
One year after the factory closed, workers are still owed an estimated $1.3 million The Industrias Florenzi factory in San Salvador, El Salvador, dismissed its 210 workers in the first half of 2020, finally ceasing operations in July. One year later, however, workers still have not been paid the $1.3 million in terminal compensation which…