Case can be made that Nygard should cover lost wages
Subcontractor Chung Fai closed last year, leaving 208 workers without back pay and without severance
What does it take to get a company to operate ethically when legally it bears no responsibility?
Jeffery Hermanson, whose career in union organizing dates back four decades, takes issue with my views on Nygard’s subcontracting of garment manufacture to a company called Chung Fai. “The writer of the article . . . just doesn’t get it,” Hermanson wrote in an email. So I called him up.
Hermanson started out with the International Ladies Garment Workers Union in 1977.
Today, he’s the executive co-ordinator of the International Union League for Brand Responsibility, which includes the Cambodia Apparel Workers’ Democratic Union, or C-CAWDU, among its membership.
“I think things have gotten worse rather than better,” he says of the situation in Cambodia. “Although the unions that are large and fairly strong have been able to negotiate some agreements with employers, the legal system has gotten worse, the government has become more rather than less repressive and it’s a constant struggle to maintain and expand union representation of the workers.”
Operating in the Cambodian capital of Phnom Penh, the Hong Kong-owned Chung Fai suddenly closed up shop last year, leaving 208 workers without back pay and without severance. A campaign launched by a coalition of worker rights groups estimates that the garment employees, some of whom worked for the company for 15 years, are owed more than $500,000 (U.S.). Last week, the coalition called upon Nygard, Bonmarche and Marks and Spencer to pay compensation.
There are two issues here in which the Canadian consumer plays a part.
The first is to put pressure on Nygard to get with the modern age by adopting supply-chain transparency. Where are Nygard’s American boho cold shoulder flutter sleeve blouses made? Unlike its more progressive peers in clothing manufacture, Nygard does not disclose its contracted factories by name and location.
As Hermanson rightly points out, “The disclosure of your supply chain is a preliminary indication that you’re taking responsibility for the conditions in the factory.”
Here at the Star, we’ve been pushing for such transparency since the Rana Plaza disaster more than four years ago.
Nygard has consistently fallen short.
Its “supplier relationships,” posted online, claim that 60 per cent of its suppliers have been with the company for more than five years. The suppliers are not named. References to company-controlled factory audits are selective, opaque and imprecise, rendering their “audit report summary” useless to the consumer.
Not only does Nygard not disclose its supplier relations, the company makes no mention of subcontractors, which is where Chung Fai comes in.
When asked specifically if Nygard subcontracted to the company, Nygard’s response, via email, was this: “There is no documentation relating to any contract between Nygard and Chung Fai for the ordering or billing of goods from Chung Fai.”
Yet a bill of lading is easily accessible online, documenting a shipment of Chung Fai-made ladies wear to the U.S., with Nygard International as the consignee.
It’s reasonable to assume that the “contract” was subcontracted to Chung Fai.
In a letter to Nygard, the worker coalition, made up of the Clean Clothes Campaign, Maquila Solidarity Network and Workers United Council Canada, states that Chung Fai workers attest to producing clothes for Nygard since 2013.
If this is the case, Nygard is shamefully hiding behind a technicality. If it can state that it has not subcontracted to Chung Fai, it should say so. And then what? Nygard states that “all workers are provided a letter during recruitment with their salary structure, grade, employment conditions and benefits.” Suppliers are obliged to sign a code of conduct policy. But that provides no assurance to consumers if the work is subcontracted out.
On Saturday, I stated that in the world of subcontracting, the case couldn’t be made that Nygard is responsible for making good on the lost Chung Fai wages.
I suspect there was a fair bit of steam coming out of Hermanson’s ears when he read that. He cites a number of examples where companies were pressured to resolve disputes with subcontractors.
In 2010, following student protests against Nike — and a cleverly worded “Just Pay It” campaign — Nike announced that it would pay $1.5 million to Honduran workers after two subcontractors closed their plants. Nike labelled the financial initiative a “worker relief fund.”
“You are actually responsible for what happens in the manufacture of your garments ethically, if not legally,” Hermanson says, adding that denial of responsibility is often the first stage that companies go through.
“In almost all cases it took a campaign in the consuming marketplace to get those companies to step up and take responsibility.”
Hermanson’s right: the case can be made.
Now it’s up to consumers to make their views known. jenwells@thestar.ca