...we are still producing J.Crew Group merchandise in this facility, and plan to continue our business relationship with Sterling Apparel Limited and Chiefway Katunayake...

...please see our responses below to your concerns based on our own review of documents, additional information provided by management at Chiefway Katunayake, as well as the vendor who owns the facility, Sterling Apparel Limited. We will continue to investigate the details of these allegations...

Outline of allegations according to FTZ & GSEU

• In 2023, it was announced that all workers in the factory were to receive an additional two days’ national holiday in the form of two days of paid leave - for September 28 and 29 2023.

Thurs. Sept. 28th and Fri. Sept. 29th 2023 were official public holidays for which the workers were paid.

• However, the union alleges that management said all workers must do two hours of unpaid overtime during September 2023 to accrue these hours of leave, and minimise the cost to the company of providing these additional days of leave.
• Eventually, management agreed with the union that workers need only do one hour of unpaid overtime – still a violation of workers’ right to paid overtime and leave

The regular work week is 5 days, 8 hours a day Mon. – Fri., and 5 hours on Saturday for a total of 45 hours. Based on slow business, the factory requested that the workers only work 40 hours that week by not working on Saturday. The FTZ requested that the Sat. hours be allocated to the other working days that week so the workers would still be paid for 45 which resulted in the following schedule for that week: 10 hours on Mon, 9 hours on Tues, and 9 hours on Wed.

• This decision was reportedly announced to workers through the employee council (EC), rather than the trade union, despite the latter being the body mandated by national and international law to bargain on behalf of and represent workers.

It is our understanding that the re-allocation of hours was proposed by the FTZ and negotiated with the FTZ, not the employee council. The factory was able to provide the consent document from the workers for the schedule change, and the announcement of the change was made through their public announcement system.

• One week later, the union reports that it got hold of letters where the EC had attempted to collect signatures from employees agreeing to have two hours taken off their payslips, rather than the one hour agreed – lodging a complaint with human resources. Reportedly, human resources questioned why the union would have these letters, and EC members tried to physically assault branch members for raising the issue.

The negotiated schedule outlined above is recorded in the attendance system and reflects all hours worked. No physical assault was reported to management or HR.

• Workers also reported a lack for facilities time for representatives of the independent trade union, while the president of the factory management’s favoured union was given ‘perks’ that included time off to play cricket.

At our request, the factory was working to provide the meeting times over the last year for the trade union and employee council for us to review, but we did not receive it in time to include in this response. There were no cricket activities during working hours.

• These practices constitute violations of workers’ fundamental right to freedom of association and collective bargaining, as well as the right to paid overtime and leave.

We will encourage factory management to work with the FTZ branch union and the employee council to better manage these types of issues, and we will continue to monitor the factory to ensure they are upholding the right to legal wages as well as freedom of association and collective bargaining.