News
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…
First Pakistan Building Inspections Indicate Deadly Fire Hazards Are Widespread
The complex work of formally registering the Pakistan Accord as an entity able to operate in Pakistan is complete. This was an important hurdle, now cleared, which will allow vital safety inspections to commence. The urgent need for the Accord program in Pakistan is underscored by the results of pilot safety assessments already conducted by the Accord in seven Pakistani garment and textile factories.
Thai El Monte Garment Workers Inducted into US Labor Hall of Honor
Twenty-eight years ago last month, consumers opened their newspapers to learn that sweatshops had returned to the US apparel industry, on domestic soil, under conditions unheard of in nearly a century. In August 1995, more than 70 Thai migrant workers were found to be sewing garments sold by major US retailers, under slave labor conditions,…
Leading Apparel Brands Tolerated Delivery Delays Resulting from Türkiye Earthquake; but Most Have Done Little Else to Support Survivors
New research shows that many apparel giants failed to take appropriate steps to protect suppliers and workers, leaving 48% of factories unable to pay employees in full after quake A white paper by the Worker Rights Consortium (WRC) examines how 16 global brands handled their human rights obligations after the devastating earthquake in Türkiye: Pressed…
Featured News Story
WRC in the Media
Campaigners accuse ASICS over jailed worker
Ecotextile News
Can we trust textile factory audits in China?
Ecotextile News
Levi’s slammed for ignoring its own labour standards
Apparel Insider
Levi’s under fire after supplier laid off hundreds of workers
CNN
Explainer: The cost of ignoring worker freedom of association
just-style
Media Inquiries
Please direct media inquiries to:
Office Phone: (202) 387-4884
Email: [email protected]
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…