"Leading rights groups call on Nike to push its supplier Ramatex to remediate supply chain abuses in Cambodia", 20 July 2023

58 leading labour and human rights groups are demanding...Nike end its standoff with Thai and Cambodian garment workers...and pay its supply chain workers the $2.2 million in unpaid wages and benefits they have been waiting for since 2020. The workers of the Violet Apparel factory, owned by Nike’s primary manufacturing partner...Ramatex Group, were denied $1.4 million in legal benefits since the Violet Apparel factory closed in 2020...

Nike has hypocritically justified Ramatex’s continued refusal to pay workers by hiding behind a legally invalid ruling against the Violet Apparel workers by Cambodia’s Arbitration Council, even as Nike joined with other major brands in 2018 and 2019 to directly raise concerns with the Cambodian Government about the diminishing independence of the Arbitration Council and threats to labour rights in the country. Human Rights Watch cited the biased Arbitration Council outcome as demonstrative of the “politically compromised Arbitration Council”, and the WRC has detailed how the excuse used by Ramatex to dismiss workers without paying them full benefits was bogus.

...Nike is... denying the conclusive evidence that its goods were produced at Violet Apparel for years, in spite of receiving photos of Nike goods being made in the factory, including of Nike thread lists, labels, and internal documents as well as consistent, credible testimony from all workers that they produced Nike goods for years...Nike is also defending the factory's behaviour in the Hong Seng Knitting factory in Thailand, where it is insisting that workers voluntarily donated their legally owed wages to their employer during the pandemic, even though workers protested and reported the wage theft to the police...

“The WRC report shows what we knew already: Ramatex and its biggest buyer Nike must ensure these workers are finally compensated. There is no legal ground that justifies their inaction and they cannot appeal to a flawed institution for protection”, said Yang Sophorn, president of the Cambodian Alliance of Trade Union (CATU)...

Read the full statement here...