[Excerpt translation from Chinese to English provided by Business & Human Rights Resource Centre]

“H&M accused of revising employee handbook, specifying that staff “causing reputational damage with online speech could be fired””, 25 June 2020

Staff members of H&M said that the fashion brand has unilaterally revised the employee handbook to restrict employees from sharing their views on the social media. If the company reckons that those posts violate the code or would damage its reputation, it will dismiss the staff member or terminate his or her employment contract. The revised code also specifies that no personal opinions on gender, race, religion, politics or other fields should be displayed on the work outfit, and that whether the outfit is accepted would “be decided solely by the management at their discretion”. The union criticized the act as creating “white terror” and tramping over the freedom of speech protected under the Basic Law. H&M confirmed that they have updated their employee handbook, but believed that the controversy stems from misunderstandings in communications…

The H&M staff union in Hong Kong urged its members not to sign the acknowledgment letter while it requests to bargain with the employer and express their discontent…

When replying to enquiries, H&M said that they update their employee handbook from time to time… which does not specify that H&M Hong Kong prohibits staff members from expressing their views as that would contradict the values of the company…