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.”
###
Notes:
While most garment-producing countries require severance, non-payment is a chronic problem in the apparel industry. For more
information on severance theft, see Fired, Then Robbed: Fashion brands’ complicity in wage theft during Covid-19.
Before closing Brilliant Alliance, Clover Group formed a partnership with Sri Lanka-based Brandix, one of the world’s largest clothing
manufacturers. All of Clover’s factories were included in the new company, except Brilliant Alliance, allowing Clover and Brandix to
profit from Clover’s assets and its ongoing brand relationships, while the Brilliant Alliance workers went unpaid.
Hundreds of trade unions, labor rights groups, and other civil society organizations, along with the Solidarity Center and the WRC,
have endorsed #PayYourWorkers, an effort to press apparel brands to join with unions to create a global severance guarantee fund,
thereby putting an end to severance theft in the global apparel industry.
Tagged: Wage Theft
Location: Thailand
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