On International Migrants Day, justifications for migrant worker abuse in Nike’s supply chain put migrant rights under threat
Last week the Nike funded and founded Fair Labor Association (FLA) issued the next report in a series of investigations that Nike commissioned, some of which it has kept secret, to make its point that the migrant workers of the Hong Seng Knitting factory in 2020 decided to sign away their wages willingly and consensually. This way Nike has been stalling and avoiding the conclusion that the independent investigation of the Worker Rights Consortium drew in 2021, that already vulnerable migrant workers in this factory faced abuse, threats, and intimidation to coerce them into agreeing to “voluntary” unpaid leave.
While the new FLA report confirms the factory’s abusive environment and the existence of threats and intimidation against workers who refused to sign, it comes to the extraordinary conclusion that nevertheless the majority of workers parted with their legally owed wages out of free consent. The FLA report even affirms the factory’s decision to file a police complaint against a migrant worker after he spoke out in a Facebook post about being forced to give up wages. Despite the fact that he felt compelled to flee to Myanmar with his wife and young baby because of being reported to the police, the FLA claims that this was not retaliation for his organising efforts to resist wage exploitation. It said that he did the wrong thing by speaking out publicly.
For four years Nike continues to deny that Hong Seng committed mass wage theft, maintaining the claim that the 3000 workers at the factory freely consented not to be paid US$600,000 in wages to which they had a legal right during the pandemic. While workers at other factories in Thailand received these desperately needed wages, Hong Seng lied about facing financial pressure when, in fact, the company reported a profit for the year, paying its owners a dividend of nearly half a million dollars at the same time it was forcing its workers to go unpaid.
Niki Gamara, regional Urgent Appeal coordinator for South East Asia at the Clean Clothes Campaign said: “The FLA report sets a dangerous precedent by giving the green light to employer use of coercion, intimidation, and retaliation for organising in factories that have long been established as rights abusers. Apparently, calling the police on a migrant worker who has complained about exploitative conditions, or sacking someone for filing a complaint with the government, isn’t retaliation.”
“While rights advocates are trying hard to end repression against human and labour rights defenders, Nike funds and hides behind a group willing to say that migrant workers who were already in a vulnerable position in an abusive factory freely consented to letting their employer keep their wages. By condoning this manner of rights abuse, the FLA disregards any systemic vulnerabilities of migrant workers in Thailand and puts them at risk of further exploitation and abuse.”
“This report, which claims all was done correctly but nevertheless suggests paying compensation amounting to a tiny fraction of what workers are actually owed, is a slap in the face to the idea of what constitutes remedy. This is not complicated. More than 140,000 people, nearly 60 leading human rights groups including Human Rights Watch and Oxfam, and more than 70 of Nike’s major investors worth $4 trillion in AUM have all publicly demanded that Nike ensure the Hong Seng workers are paid in full, including the legal interest that is accumulating the longer this takes. Nike could pick up the phone right now and make it happen, but they are choosing not to and finding others to support their cruelty to migrant workers.”
Contact: Christie Miedema, Clean Clothes Campaign, christie@cleanclothes.org, +31 642060638