"Brands' Responsibility in COVID-19 Humanitarian Crisis: Contribute to Garment Workers' Relief", April 2020

Garment workers in Asia... who in the best of circumstances, survive under high-risk, poverty-level working and living conditions are least equipped to bear the brunt of [the COVID-19 crisis]...

[W]e propose that brands make a one-time Supply-chain Relief Contribution for each worker in their supplier factories, as a requirement of responsible business practices. Based on the existing data on labour cost, we propose brands calculate their Supply-chain Relief Contribution as an additional 2% of the total sourcing by the brand from the preceding 12 months at the respective factory. The SRC should be structured as a pass through from the brands to the suppliers, payable directly to the workers. If brands honour this Contribution for their supplier factories, each worker would get a modest but important Contribution to help them mitigate the most extreme effects of the... crisis...

The SRC is a relief contribution and in no way substitutes brands’ existing and ongoing supply chain obligations to pay for orders given and produced, to not cancel orders, to not seek discounts in an already under-costed supply chain, and so on. It also does not substitute for obligations to pay severance contributions...