WRC Delivers Back Pay to Collegiate Apparel Workers in Bangladesh

Workers Receive Full Remedy for Unpaid Compensation

This month more than 700 workers formerly employed by the Base Textiles Ltd factory in Bangladesh, which had produced collegiate apparel for the university licensee Cutter & Buck, each received an average of four months’ wages in severance that had gone unpaid since the factory closed.

As we have previously reported, the funds were contributed by Cutter & Buck following a WRC investigation which found that, upon closing, the factory management had attempted to evade its legal obligation to pay workers’ severance, by coercing them into “resigning” shortly before the factory closed.

After the factory’s owner stopped responding to both the WRC and the Bangladesh labor department, the WRC asked Cutter & Buck to contribute sufficient funds to remedy the violation, by fully compensating the workers, as university labor standards require. To its credit, Cutter & Buck quickly agreed to provide the workers with US$325,832 in severance—the full amount the factory’s owner had failed to pay them. The WRC then worked with both the country’s garment manufacturers’ association, the BGMEA, and the Bangladesh Independent Garment Union Federation to distribute the funds Cutter & Buck contributed to the workers. Although recent political turmoil in Bangladesh significantly delayed the process, workers received their compensation in full in January 2025.

What Receiving Full Remedy Means for Workers

Receiving the funds that workers legally earned but were not paid for over two years is giving hope and substantial material benefit to hundreds of workers’ families, many of which have faced desperate circumstances since the factory closed. Manju Begum (name changed for worker’s safety) was a sewing machine operator at Base Textiles and is the mother of two children. She received nearly US$2,000 in January’s distribution—the equivalent of almost 19 months’ wages for a Bangladeshi garment worker.

Manju has been unable to find work at other garment factories since the Base Textiles factory closed—at age 43, factory managers regard her as too old to hire. The prevalence of such blatant age discrimination, which is rampant in Bangladesh and other major apparel manufacturing countries, is one reason it is so crucial that workers are not cheated out of legally owed severance when factories close—since these longtime workers, despite their skills and experience, face daunting prospects for reemployment.

Unable to secure work at another factory, Manju moved back to her village, where, even with a lower cost of living, she had to take out loans to pay for basic necessities. Now that she finally has received the severance she earned at Base Textiles, Manju plans to repay the loans and use the remaining amount to set up a small shop in her village to support herself and her children. 

Sharmin Akter was pregnant when Base Textiles closed in 2022, leaving her without wages and severance pay. Her year-and-a-half-old son accompanied her to the disbursement. In January, she received the equivalent of more than six months’ wages for a Bangladeshi garment worker. Sharmin said, “I’m going to invest this money for my child’s future, and I hope he doesn’t have to endure the hardships I faced.”. 

This case illustrates, once again, the crucial role university standards and independent factory monitoring play in ensuring workers employed at factories that have made collegiate apparel receive the full compensation they have legally earned and that—especially when hardship strikes—they and their families desperately need.
 
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Former employees of Base Textiles receiving their severance two years after the factory closure.