All of these cases implicate leading brands and retailers, from Amazon, to Next, to Walmart. mon, even when a brand or retailer admits to having used a factory that stole severance from fired workers, to claim that its relationship with the factory ended prior to the theft. Given the cyclical and seasonal nature of apparel production, which means that even a factory’s steadiest customers are often absent from its production lines for months at a time, no brand or retailer can legitimately disclaim responsibility for labor rights violations at a factory if it was producing at the factory at any point within several months of the violations. When a brand or retailer the WRC initially identified as a buyer has persuasively shown that it ended its relationship well before violations occurred, the WRC has omitted that brand in our reporting on that factory. WRC performed its own analysis to verify the reasonableness of the estimate. Where no hard numbers were available, the WRC generated estimates based on the number of affected workers, the laws governing severance and other terminal compensation in the relevant country, and conservative estimates of the average seniority of the affected worker population. In any case where the WRC could not generate an estimate in which we have confidence, we omitted the case from this report. Figures for amounts still owed, versus what workers were owed at the time of dismissal, are derived from credible reports of payments workers have received to date, from worker organizations, from workers themselves, and/or from employers or brands. Estimating the Amounts Owed to Workers In some cases, our figures omit forms of terminal compensation other than severance (for example, accrued vacation) for which we did not have adequate information. In such instances, our figures therefore underestimate the amount workers were due. Our figures for amounts owed to workers at the time of dismissal are based on one or more of the following: data provided by government labor agencies; estimates provided by unions or other organizations representing workers; calculations by the WRC drawing on figures or formulae from formal agreements between employers and worker organizations; and figures provided by credible local news sources that had access to information from workers, government officials, or industry trade associations. In any case where the original source was a union or worker organization, or a news outlet, rather than an official government body, the WRC yz Remediation In all of these cases, the WRC has engaged, is currently engaging, or will be engaging with brands to seek redress of the violations. In many instances, as outlined in the summaries of selected cases following Table 2, workers and/or their organizations are actively pressing for compensation, through public protest, among other means. Fired, Then Robbed zy Page 15