Worker Rights Consortium

10/05/2026

For many years, the KOA Modas factory, a supplier of apparel to Target, failed to make legally required social security contributions to the Guatemalan government on its workers’ behalf and, worse, stole workers’ own contributions by deducting them from their paychecks and then pocketing the money. These payments were necessary for workers to receive healthcare and, upon retirement, pensions.

When KOA Modas ceased operation in February 2025, it committed a further violation of workers’ rights by failing to pay 750 workers the severance benefits they were owed under the law—costing workers, on average, the equivalent of 14 months’ pay. After extensive advocacy efforts by the WRC and the factory workers’ unions, Sae-A Trading agreed to pay $5.3 million to ensure workers received their severance.

However, KOA Modas’ nonpayment of social security continues to plague its former employees. The factory’s theft of workers’ social security contributions is having a devastating impact on workers who have reached the retirement age of 60 and now cannot collect their pensions. These workers were employed at KOA Modas for as long as 25 years, more than long enough to earn a full government pension. Now they cannot retire and must keep working because they have no pension to support themselves.

The WRC calls on Target, the factory’s sole brand customer prior to its closure, to remedy this violation.

Our report:https://www.workersrights.org/app/uploads/2026/07/Factory-Assessment-at-KOA-Modas-Guatemala.pdf

09/28/2026

A recent WRC investigative report identifies significant labor rights violations at the Gaha Green factory in Indonesia, which made university logo goods for Columbia Sportswear.

The WRC has worked over an extended period to secure the necessary remedies for workers, and, while this effort has led to progress in some areas—including an end to employees being compelled to work off-the-clock without pay—the factory has not come into compliance with university standards: Gaha Green has both refused to compensate workers for past violations and continues to violate workers’ rights, primarily by denying workers access to paid leave, including sick leave, to which they have a legal right.

When workers are deprived of wages and benefits they have legally earned, they must be paid back. This is among the most basic labor rights principles, and it is a component of both Indonesian law and university labor codes. Columbia Sportswear’s failure to secure remediation of labor rights violations at Gaha Green places it in breach of its obligations to its university licensors.

To come into compliance with university labor standards, Columbia Sportswear must ensure that Gaha Green:
• Stops denying its workforce the paid leave to which workers have a legal right;
• Compensates its workforce for the 250,000+ hours of off-the-clock labor workers performed;
• Compensates its workforce for the 150,000+ days of paid leave workers were unlawfully denied;
• Reinstates women workers who resigned from the factory to escape persistent sexual harassment; and
• Addresses other issues, including failure to provide legally adequate pay slips.

A worker-by-worker calculation will be necessary to determine the exact amount of compensation each worker is owed. The WRC estimates that the maximum amount Gaha Green owes its workers is $2.84 million. The WRC is not asking Columbia Sportswear to pay these funds. The supplier, Gaha Green, has the resources. It is Columbia Sportswear’s responsibility to get the supplier to pay.

Our report:https://www.workersrights.org/app/uploads/2026/08/WRC-Assessment-of-PT-Gaha-Green-Garment-Indonesia.pdf

09/21/2026

Over the next week, during Climate Week NYC, many apparel brands and industry associations will proclaim their commitments to protecting garment workers from the worst effects of climate change.

However, in the absence of legally binding obligations on brands, millions of garment workers will continue to be forced to churn out unmanageably high volumes of clothing, toiling long hours for sub-poverty wages under extreme heat.

09/16/2026

Tens of thousands of garment workers in Cambodia risk their lives daily just to get to work, riding on open-air trucks, standing shoulder-to-shoulder with dozens of their coworkers.
For many years, Cambodian garment workers and advocates have raised complaints about these dangerous commutes, but to no avail.

Recognizing that riding in the back of a truck will never be sufficiently safe, in 2024 the Labor Ministry set a goal of providing safe transportation for garment workers by 2027, including replacing flatbed trucks with buses. By May 23, 2026, not much had changed. On that day, 14 garment workers died and 79 were injured in multiple road accidents.

Pach Sem, a garment worker who survived one of the traffic accidents that day, feared that if he didn’t recover quickly from his injuries, no one would hire him again: “I’m old, I don’t know how to write or read so I’m afraid no one will choose me to work… Because I need to support my children to go to school, but if I cannot recover, I don’t have the desire to go to work.”

In the face of government and industry inaction, a joint statement was issued by 53 Cambodian trade unions, civil society groups, and international NGOs in June 2026, calling on international brands to “provide sufficient financial support and stable sourcing commitments to enable factories to invest in safe transportation and ensure that worker safety on and off site is a non-negotiable standard.”

Given the substantial costs involved in creating an industry-wide system of reasonably safe transportation, and given the thin profit margins of most factory owners, progress is unlikely unless apparel brands, all of which claim that their monitoring programs protect workers from occupational safety hazards, step up. Responsible brands would not allow the workers in Cambodia who make their clothes to risk death or injury every day, just to get to work.

Worker Rights Consortium

09/10/2026

The WRC worked with the university licensee, Fanatics Apparel, and Hoosier Manufacturing, a garment factory in Guatemala that supplies Fanatics with Nike-branded collegiate apparel, to agree on remedies for the factory’s dismissal of 367 workers in August 2025, despite a court’s protective order prohibiting these terminations.

The factory will:
- Make job offers of comparable positions at the factory and provide 11 months’ back pay to the 66 workers who filed court claims challenging their dismissals; and
- Pay two months’ back wages to the 301 other laid off workers, who did not seek reinstatement but were dismissed two months before the court order was lifted.

The WRC recognizes the positive efforts and meaningful commitments of both Fanatics Apparel, as a university licensee, and Hoosier, as a longtime manufacturer of collegiate goods, to restore compliance with university codes of conduct in this case. These measures, once implemented, promise to have a substantial beneficial impact on the affected workers in Guatemala and their families.

Remedies Restore Compliance with University Standards

02/12/2026

The WRC is pleased to join a virtual side-session at the 2026 OECD Forum on Due Diligence in the Garment and Footwear Sector run by Asia Floor Wage Alliance and Global Labor Justice. As a panelist in this session, Rola Abimourched, WRC’s Deputy Director for Investigations and Gender Equity, will share insights from the Central Java Agreement for Gender Justice, an enforceable worker-led model for addressing gender-based violence and harassment (GBVH) in global supply chains which also draws upon the WRC’s experience with the Lesotho Anti-GBVH Agreements.

Reweaving Supply Chain Governance: Lessons from the Central Java Agreement for Gender Justice
📅 Friday, February 13, 2026
⏰ 12:15 – 1:30PM CET / 6:15 – 7:30AM ET

Register here: https://www.oecd-events.org/e/garment/session/2f716423-fed4-f011-8195-0022487f0371/reweaving-supply-chain-governance-lessons-from-the-central-java-agreement-for-gender-justice

02/04/2026

The WRC is excited to be hosting a virtual side-session at the 2026 OECD Forum on Due Diligence in the Garment and Footwear Sector.

When Workers Are Silenced for Exercising Their Rights: Countering Criminalisation and Advancing Corporate Responsibility for Remedy
🗓️ Monday, February 9, 2026
⏰ 3:00 – 4:30PM CET / 9:00 – 10:30AM ET

🔍 What we’ll cover:
• How false criminal cases, SLAPP tactics, and imprisonment are being used to suppress workers’ rights
• Why weak human rights due diligence and corporate responses leave workers exposed
• What recent case studies reveal about securing remedy
• Practical lessons for companies and policymakers on protecting freedom of association

Register here: https://www.workersrights.org/2026-oecd-forum-on-due-diligence-in-the-garment-and-footwear-sector/