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Hugo Boss—Heartless to Heart and Mind Workers, Workers Who Sewed for Brand at Thai Factory Denied Severance
Hugo Boss continues to refuse to ensure that workers who made its branded clothes receive their legally owed severance at Heart and Mind, a garment factory that was located in Nakhon Pathom, Thailand and permanently closed on December 3, 2017. Hugo Boss is one of the largest German clothing brands, achieving record sales of EUR 4.2 billion…
Cambodian Worker Leader Imprisoned on Factory’s False Charges Acquitted—ASICS, MUJI Fail to Require Supplier to Compensate Worker It Wrongly Accused
Wing Star Shoes in Cambodia, which supplies the Japanese brands, ASICS and MUJI, had its worker, Chea Chan, who is a leader of a recently formed independent union at its factory, jailed for more than 180 days, prosecuted on obviously false and retaliatory criminal charges, and sentenced to a year’s imprisonment—all while ASICS and MUJI…
WRC Statement in Response to Murder of Anastacio Tzib Caal
The WRC was shocked and outraged by the assassination of Guatemalan garment worker leader, Anastacio Tzib Caal, on June 15. Mr. Tzib Caal was employed at the garment factory, Texpia II, which is owned by the multinational apparel manufacturer, SAE-A Trading, and produces for major brands such as Walmart, Target, Carhartt, and Academy Sports. Tzib…
ASICS Allowed Cambodian Supplier Factory to Have Worker Jailed for Months, Sentenced to One Year in Prison in Retaliation for Forming Union
In recent years, the Cambodian government has intensified its crackdown on workers’ right to freedom of association by colluding with factory employers to repress workers’ efforts to form independent unions. This collusion has implicated international apparel and footwear brands in serious human rights violations when their supplier factories have caused worker leaders to be jailed…
WRC Secures Five Months’ Wages in Unpaid Severance for Workers of Former Workwear Factory in Haiti
This past holiday season, former workers of Horizon Manufacturing, a garment factory in Haiti that made work uniforms for export to the United States, received more than $300,000 to correct nonpayment of severance they had been owed by the facility owner, since the factory closed in April 2022. Top workwear companies, Edwards Garment and Aramark…
Guatemalan Factory That Produced Lucky Brands, American Eagle, Hanesbrands, and Gillz Closed Owing Workers $1.4 Million in Severance
Industrial Hana, a garment factory in Guatemala, permanently closed operations in October 2023. The factory shuttered operations on October 5, violating Guatemalan labor law by failing to pay severance to its 229 employees. Workers at the factory reported that, prior to its closure, the factory produced garments, under subcontracting relationships with other local manufacturers, for…
More Justice, Less Fear, at Adidas Supplier in Cambodia
Trax Apparel—a sportswear factory in Cambodia, disclosed as a supplier to Triform Custom Apparel, adidas’s licensee for collegiate apparel—has reinstated and provided legally owed back pay to workers whom the factory unlawfully dismissed in 2020, following a WRC investigation and subsequent engagement with adidas for corrective action. This case underscores the critical role of collegiate…
Disastrous Outcome on Wages Made Worse by the Price Workers Are Paying for Speaking Out
Brands are facing final calls to use their leverage to influence the wage outcome: brands should reject the wage proposal and publicly commit to increase prices to support a wage of US$215 per month during the official 14-day period for submission of objections, which ends November 26.
Garment workers are encountering systematic punishment and retaliation, including violence, arrests, terminations, and killings…
Bangladesh Minimum Wage Negotiations Put Brands’ Living Wage “Commitments” to the Test
Poverty wages and high inflation, make substantial minimum wage increase for garment workers long overdue—international brands must take responsibility Impoverished garment workers in Bangladesh earning US$73 per month, while making apparel for top international brands, are calling for an increase in the country’s minimum wage to US$215 (23,000–25,000 Bangladesh taka, “BDT”) per month—a figure recent…
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$1.5 Million Wage Theft from Guatemalan Workers Who Made Lucky Brand Owned by Authentic and Shein
As the WRC reported previously, Industrial Hana, a garment factory in Guatemala, permanently closed operations in October 2023, without paying its approximately 250 employees $1.5 million in unpaid severance and other terminal benefits owed to them in accordance with Guatemalan law. The WRC’s investigation found that, in the months leading up to the factory’s closure,…