David Welsh, Thailand country director of the Solidarity Center, called the settlement a “huge victory” for the garment workers. “Low-wage garment workers left destitute by injustice meted out by global supply chains is nothing new,” he said. ”What’s new is they did not accept their fate — and won.”
Agreement, the Largest Wage-Theft Settlement at a Garment Factory, Follows Year-Long Advocacy by International Labor Rights Advocates
The Solidarity Center and the Worker Rights Consortium (WRC) announced today that more than 1,250 Thai workers who sewed bras for Victoria’s Secret, Lane Bryant, and Torrid—and who were fired in 2021 without their legally mandated severance—have received $8.3 million (281 million baht) in compensation. The groups credited the decision of Victoria’s Secret to finance the payments, via a loan arrangement with the workers’ former employer.
Sycamore Partners, the parent of Lane Bryant and Torrid, did not contribute.
“This is a huge victory for the workers and a testament to the courage of their union and the strength of the international solidarity campaign that supported them,” said David Welsh, Thailand country director of the Solidarity Center. “Low-wage garment workers left destitute by injustice meted out by global supply chains is nothing new. What’s new is they did not accept their fate—and won. We also hope this represents a model for the type of domestic, governmental, international and brand engagement to resolve future cases where garment workers are left in similarly desperate straits. It’s an historic case given the amount of the settlement and again, hopefully, a model for the global garment industry going forward in terms of direct brand involvement’.
The workers are represented by the Triumph International Union, affiliated with the Confederation of Industrial Labour of Thailand.
“Our organization has documented hundreds of cases of wage theft in the apparel supply chain,” said Scott Nova, Executive Director of the WRC. “This was the largest theft—and now the most back pay—we’ve ever seen at an individual garment factory. The $8.3 million provided by Victoria’s Secret is also the most any brand has ever contributed to help resolve a wage theft case.”
After the Brilliant Alliance factory closed in March 2021, the Thai government ordered its owner, Hong Kong-based Clover Group, to pay severance within 30 days. Clover refused, telling the factory’s 1,250 low-wage workers it had no money and they should agree to wait 10 years to be paid in full.
With the Solidarity Center’s support and advocacy, the union launched a campaign demanding their severance pay. The WRC and Solidarity Center engaged Victoria’s Secret and Sycamore, pressing them to ensure the workers were paid. The WRC identified other brands that did not use Brilliant Alliance, but had influence over Clover and over a key business partner, Brandix, a Sri Lankan apparel supplier: American Eagle Outfitters, Gap, and PVH. After months of efforts, including campaigning by Clean Clothes Campaign, Remake, and other nonprofit worker advocacy organizations participating in the global #PayYourWorkers coalition, Clover agreed to pay the workers and Victoria’s Secret committed to finance the payments, via a loan to Clover. Last week, all workers received their severance, plus over one million dollars in interest, per Thai law.
Sycamore Partners ignored entreaties and did nothing to support the workers.
“Many of the workers were at the factory for well over a decade and they earned very substantial severance,” said Welsh, noting that the average Brilliant Alliance worker received the equivalent of more than two years’ wages and some received as much as four years’ pay.
“The severance these workers earned was effectively their life’s savings,” said Nova, “stolen from them when they were fired and now restored.” He continued, “Victoria’s Secret should be very proud of what it has done here. The people who run Sycamore Partners should hang their heads in shame.”
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The Solidarity Center can arrange worker interviews upon request.
Notes:
Unions in the Honduran maquila sector bargain to improve work conditions and address gender-based violence at work, and so provide options for those who may migrate to seek jobs, a Solidarity Center report finds.
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A far-reaching project by Poland’s largest union federation is providing comprehensive assistance to Ukrainian refugees to ensure they have fundamental rights on the job as they take on new employment in the country.
“When the war in Ukraine broke out and refugees started coming to Poland in huge numbers, we knew that we had to integrate them,” says Piotr Ostrowski, vice president of the All-Poland Alliance of Trade Unions (OPZZ), which is spearheading the project.
“Trade unions must ensure decent working conditions for all: For youths and adults. For men and women. For locals and migrants. No matter what passport they have, what color their skin is, where they come from. Migrants must not be exploited.”
More than 100,000 Ukrainian refugees, 75 percent of them women, have found jobs in Poland, an extraordinary number facilitated by a law Poland passed in March allowing Ukrainians entering the country after February 24 to secure employment without special permits.
Yet, like migrant workers around the world, they are vulnerable to exploitation, with some employers refusing to pay full wages or otherwise violating fundamental worker rights.
In March, OPZZ launched Unions Helping Refugees, staffed by lawyers and other experts who educate Ukrainian workers on their rights under Polish law and assist with cases involving unpaid wages or wages lower than the minimum, and offer legal review of employment contracts to ensure they are within the law. The Solidarity Center made a significant contribution toward the OPZZ services.
“In OPZZ, we knew that we had to act as soon as possible to provide refugees with information about their rights on the Polish labor market and where they could go if they had problems,” Ostrowski says.
The free service is available in person, by email or through a new info line. Most recently, OPZZ began offering free psychological consultations for war refugees.
“Our team of experts supports refugees in the workplace and helps migrant workers get fair working conditions,” reads a typical post on the Unions Helping Refugees Facebook page. “What do we do and how can we help?”
Through its Facebook page, billboards and posters in bus stations and other transit areas, Unions Helping Refugees is reaching out as widely as possible to connect with Ukrainian migrant workers. Union staff assisting the refugees say in addition to seeking jobs, Ukrainians are looking for information on social benefits and finding housing.
One of the biggest challenges—in addition to trying to assist so many Ukrainian refugees who come to Poland—is finding people who speak Ukrainian: “Many refugees do not speak Polish. Although Polish and Ukrainian are similar, they are two different languages,” Ostrowski says. “The alphabet is also different. In Poland, we use the Latin alphabet. So the main problem is reaching the refugees and the language barrier.”
OPZZ is undertaking this massive effort even as the union addresses issues affecting workers throughout Poland, like falling wages, an increase in precarious working conditions—especially for young people and migrants—and the proliferation of what Ostrowski says are “junk” contracts that do not protect worker rights.
Yet, the bottom line, says Ostrowski, is that all migrant workers and refugees have the same rights as everyone—and must be treated as such.
“While helping the Ukrainian refugees, we should not forget about other refugees,” he says.
“On the one hand, the Polish government is very open to refugees from Ukraine, but at the same time it is very brutal towards refugees from Syria, Iraq or Afghanistan. The Polish government is applying double standards based on xenophobia, islamophobia and racism. For OPZZ this is unacceptable. We are totally against it.”
Platform delivery workers in Ukraine, many of them displaced from their homes, are demanding decent wages as they continue to work in the midst of war.
On May 12, delivery drivers in Lviv went to Bolt Food’s headquarters to deliver their suggestions and seek an open dialogue with the company. Participants dressed to conceal their identities because they say the company has punished workers in the past with “robo-firings” and “robo-suspensions” by excluding them from the app.
Many of the delivery riders in Lviv have fled cities impacted by the war in Ukraine. In several cases, they are homeless or the only breadwinners left for their families.
In a video produced by Ukraine’s Labor Initiatives, workers describe their situations.
“I am from Mykolaiv,” says one worker. “Mom and Dad lost their jobs there. I don’t have a place to live here and I don’t even have enough money to eat. Bolt … said they would support favorable conditions. Both for themselves and for couriers. But they simply did not warn anyone, removed the minimum pay, lowered all the ratios.”
“How are the IDPs supposed to live,” he asks, “who have no housing, no work [and] don’t have anything to eat?”
Another worker describes the deterioration in pay. “They took away the minimum payment for delivery. And the ratios were reduced by almost half. Here a colleague has calculated that it, approximately, will give a reduction of wages by 52 percent.”
Workers said the company has failed to explain the reasons for the changes. Meanwhile, workers who rely on cars and motorcycles and have to keep their vehicles fueled in order to work face rising gas prices.
“Fuel is among my expenses,” said one worker. “Now I don’t know if I can even pay for it.”
The demands of these workers clearly show that platform-based companies abuse worker rights in extreme environments using the technology the companies have set up to maximize profits.
Delivery companies are “not regulated properly,” one delivery rider said. “Each service acts as they want. Some platforms employ people as ‘private entrepreneurs,’ some just saying ‘You are plugged into the platform” and you should be grateful for it. Because of that, many issues arise.
“And if after all this,” he continued, “some trade unions … will be formed, that will be great. People should have the instrument to solve the issues. Strange as it may sound, that may even be worth their lives.”
