Fashion brands should fix their “broken industry” by ensuring millions of pandemic-hit workers receive their full wages and by guaranteeing severance pay if jobs are cut, a coalition of more than 200 rights groups said on Monday.
The PayYourWorkers campaign said brands and retailers that made a profit in 2020 – like Nike, Amazon and Next – could stop garment workers “going hungry” and set up a severance fund by paying manufacturers the equivalent of $0.10 more per t-shirt.
“This is the minimum brands should do on the way to the living wages which must become the standard of a post-pandemic recovery,” said Ineke Zeldenrust from the Clean Clothes Campaign, a coalition member. “This proposal is achievable.”
Although manufacturers in some countries do pay workers severance if they lose their jobs, factory owners often come under pressure when a brand suddenly withdraws orders, which ultimately affects the worker, researchers say. Fashion
