The Wall Street Journal, “Bangladesh Garment Factories Often Evade Monitoring,” by Shelly Banjo, October 4, 2013. http://www.globallabourrights.org/press?id=0567
Toronto Star, “Factory in Bangladesh accused of shocking abuse of pregnant workers in new labour report,” by Raveena Aulakh, October 3, 2013. http://www.thestar.com/news/world/2013/10/03/gap_makes_work_a_living_hell_for_pregnant_women_in_bangladesh_factory.html
Gap Must come clean
* Gap accounts for 70 percent of total production at the Next Collections factory, which gives Gap the power—and responsibility–to immediately improve working conditions.
* If Gap has in fact monitored working conditions at the Next Collections sweatshop in Bangladesh, Gap should be anxious to turn over its factory audits to the American people, who have the right to know.
What Gap must do
* Do not cut and run from the Next Collections factory, which is the worst thing Gap could do, as it would only further punish the workers.
* Gap is responsible to see that all Next Collections workers receive the overtime pay of which they have been cheated over the years and that every pregnant woman working at the Next Collections factory receives her full maternity benefits. (Gap is responsible for at least the last 2 ½ years, when scores of young pregnant women workers were illegally fired and cheated of their back wages and maternity benefits.
Read the Institute’s Report: Gap and Old Navy in Bangladesh: Cheating the Poorest Workers in the World, Institute for Global Labour and Human Rights, October 2, 2013
http://www.globallabourrights.org/reports?id=0658
Please write to Gap. It is critical to press Gap to intervene to end the violations at Next Collections, and to assure that the workers are compensated for the wages and benefits of which they have been robbed: http://org.salsalabs.com/o/677/p/dia/action3/common/public/?action_KEY=14383
http://www.globallabourrights.org/reports?id=0658