Commentary Archive
Coalition to End Forced Labour in the Uyghur Region urges clear procedures to address state-imposed forced labour and require companies to map their supply chains The European Parliament and Council should introduce amendments to strengthen the European Commission’s proposal to enact a ban on goods made with forced labour, the Coalition to End Forced Labour in…
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Overview: The WRC recently documented violations of worker rights at the Guatemalan garment factory JNB Global, also known as Sams and Rudia. Following our investigation, we shared findings and recommendations for remedial action with the factory and with its buyer, Target Corporation. The violations of worker rights at JNB Global occurred when the factory required…
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The WRC helped workers organizing unions at Guatemalan factories owned by Korean multinational SAE-A secure remedies for violence, death threats, and illegal firings.
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In a major breakthrough in the efforts of the Garment and Textile Workers’ Union in Karnataka, India, the WRC, and a growing list of labor rights advocates, to address the refusal of suppliers in Karnataka to pay the legal minimum wage—a violation that has affected 400,000 workers, who are collectively owed nearly $60 million…
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“This is a joyful day that we thought would never come. My father fell ill during the past year, and I felt so sad because I wasn’t able to help with any of his expenses. But now I will be able to help buy him medicine. We appreciate all of the efforts by the organizations…
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After six months of detainment in Myanmar’s notorious, Covid-ridden Insein prison,[1] Daw Myo Myo Aye, leader of the Solidarity Trade Union of Myanmar, was released and reunited with her family along with 5,000 other political prisoners on October 21, 2021. Among those released alongside Myo Myo were three workers from Xing Jia Footwear, whose only…
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The Covid 19 pandemic has posed new health and safety risks for garment workers in factories around the world. In addition to the dangers workers already faced from excessive temperatures, unsafe machinery, and factory fires, workers now must also now contend with the spread of a potentially deadly respiratory virus in factories where, too often,…
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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…
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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…
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Hanesbrands Ensures Severance Paid to Haitian Factory Workers
In late August 2022, more than 800 workers at the apparel factory, GO Haiti (Garments of Haiti) picked up severance checks totaling $330,000, the equivalent of almost three months’ wages per worker, that were paid for by Hanesbrands, the US apparel company that had been the factory’s main buyer. Hanesbrands informed the WRC that it…
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