COVID-19 | Defending Workers’ Rights and Livelihoods in the Time of the Pandemic

Thai garment workers win historic severance settlement financed by Victoria’s Secret

Photo: Clean Clothes Campaign

Photo: Solidarity Center

After thirteen months of worker protests and international campaigning, workers from the Brilliant Alliance Thai Global garment factory have finally been paid the US$8.3 million they are legally owed. Victoria's Secret, whose lingerie were produced at the factory, financed the payments through a loan arrangement with the workers’ former employer. This is the largest settlement ever paid in a case of wage theft at an individual factory in the global garment industry.

Despite high profits, adidas engages in wage theft

Workers call on adidas to #PayYourWorkers.
(Credit: Clean Clothes Campaign)

An estimated 30,000 workers from eight adidas suppliers in Cambodia are still waiting for back pay from March to May 2021, totaling an estimated US$11.7 million.

Nationwide in Cambodia, garment workers producing goods for adidas and other international brands were deprived of an estimated US$109 million in wages during the 2021 lockdown, according to calculations by Cambodian trade unions and the Clean Clothes Campaign. This figure is a projection based on a comprehensive assessment of 114 factories.

Statement on the closure of two Sri Lankan factories amid severe financial crisis

Koggala factory garment workers during a work
stoppage in November 2021 (CCC)

FTZ & GSEU union meeting with Esquel garment workers at
Koggala Bandaranaike in March 2022. (CCC)

Approximately 1,500 workers employed at two factories – Koggala I and II - owned by Esquel Sri Lanka are facing imminent closure of their workplaces with no assurance that they will be reemployed when the factories are sold to another company.

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