Every year, hundreds of thousands of apparel workers around the world are cheated of legally-earned income when their employers fail to pay mandatory severance benefits. This pernicious form of wage theft, which costs workers the equivalent of at least several months' wages, has afflicted workers sewing clothes for just about every major apparel brand. However, since it is the brands' contract factories that directly employ the workers, the brands insist it's not their problem to fix. Factories close, bosses skip town, the brands wash their hands of the matter - and workers are left high and dry.
On July 21, Nike signed an accord under which it agreed, in effect, to accept financial responsibility for severance owed to workers by two contract factories (workers with the accord pictured left). This sharp break with business as usual by the world's leading sports apparel brand - the result of intense pressure from student activists and the company's university business partners - has significant implications for the global apparel industry.
Outsourcing and Accountability…
http://www.acslaw.org/node/16678
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