Patagonia takes stand on 'modern-day slavery'
04/06/2015
In a blog it outlines how a social responsibility audit in 2011 revealed “some red flags” which turned out to include a system some Taiwanese suppliers were using where migrant workers pay $7,000 to labour brokers to place them in factories.
“Paying that kind of money for a factory job is an almost impossible burden for workers already struggling to make a living,” said Patagonia. “It creates a form of indentured servitude that could also qualify, less politely, as modern-day slavery.
“We learned that it can take a worker as many as two years to repay a labour broker, and that most contracts last only three years before the worker has to return home and the process (and fees) begin again. It became clear to us that we needed to make significant changes - and to help alert others to both the problem and the need for change.”
Working with NGO Verité, it developed a migrant worker standard covering pre-hiring interactions, contracts, wages and fees, retention of passports, living and working conditions, grievance procedures and repatriation.
In December 2014, it presented the standard to Taiwanese suppliers and requested they stop charging fees to foreign workers hired on or after June 1, 2015. They can either pay the fees themselves or hire workers directly without the use of labour brokers. Currently employed workers, who were hired before June 1, are to be repaid all fees that exceed the legal amount.
Patagonia’s chief operating officer Doug Freeman and director of social and environmental responsibility Cara Chacon were invited to present the work at the White House Forum on Combating Human Trafficking in Supply Chains led by US Secretary of State John Kerry.
Patagonia added: ““Because this form of human trafficking is not confined to Taiwan, we have applied our migrant worker standard to our entire supply chain. We’ve also made the standard publicly available to any company that would like to adopt it
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