Consumer Goods & Textiles

A cigarette factory with the capacity to produce three billion Dunhill cigarettes per year is expected to open up in Mali this year, the product of a partnership between British American Tobacco (BAT) and the Malian government, that the company claims will create as many as 200 permanent jobs. Read More

Contractors to Boohoo, an ‘ultra fast fashion company,’ have been paying their largely immigrant workforce at sweatshops in Leicester, a city in central England, less than half the UK minimum wage of £8.17 per hour for employees over the age of 25. Read More

Rent the Runway, a high-end U.S. fashion rental business, is forcing their majority immigrant workforce to compromise their health during the coronavirus pandemic, say employees. The company, which ships most of its dresses from New Jersey, has stayed open by exploiting a loophole in the state’s emergency lockdown laws. Read More

As many as 3,500 Bangladeshi workers are reported to have been suspended or fired for taking part in protests against sweatshop wages at garment factories on the outskirts of Dhaka over the last six weeks. Dozens have been thrown in jail amid a major police crackdown on the organizers. Read More

Shoes labeled "Made in Europe" are often assembled in poor East European countries for 'starvation wages' according to a new research report from the Change Your Shoes campaign. The companies whose labor practices were examined include Ara, Bata, Deichmann, Geox, Leder & Schuh AG, Lowa and Zara. Read More

A new report on garment factories in Burma issued by Action Labor Rights (ALR) estimates that nearly a third of workers were required to work 60 hours or more a week, with almost two thirds reporting that they had no choice in the matter. Read More

Seven activists in Guangdong province, a key manufacturing hub in China, have been detained in a major crackdown on labor rights organizers. The arrests follow a steep rise in protests and strikes at factories that have long exploited migrant workers from rural areas with low pay and working conditions. Read More

SportsDirect, a British sports merchandise retailer, has been accused of employing workers in sweatshop like conditions by Channel Four Dispatches, a UK TV program. The broadcaster aired undercover footage shot by a reporter at the company's Shirebrook warehouse in northern England. Read More

Stora Enso - a Swedish paper manufacturing giant - has been blacklisted after investigations into its supply chain in Pakistan showed that the company was knowingly using child labor. In March, AP7, a major Swedish pension fund, sold off its $4.1 million stake in Stora. Read More

Chinese factories in Dongguan and Guangzhou that supply UNIQLO - a "fast fashion" label owned by Fast Retailing Co. from Japan - have been accused of endangering their workers' lives, according to a new report from Students and Scholars Against Corporate Misbehavior (SACOM), a Hong-Kong based labor rights group. Read More