Victoria’s Secret agrees to finance $8.3 million settlement for laid-off Thai workers

BANGKOK, May 27 (Reuters) – Thai personnel who had been sacked past calendar year from a factory providing international lingerie brands together with Victoria’s Secret will receive $8.3 million, in what labour activists say is the greatest settlement of its sort in the worldwide garment marketplace.

About 1,200 personnel ended up laid off without severance pay and wages owed to them by Brilliant Alliance Thai World Co Ltd (BAT) following it went bankrupt and shut down its factory in Samut Prakan province in March 2021.

The incident was one of “hundreds of circumstances of wage theft” that labour activists say took position in the garment industry in the course of the COVID-19 pandemic. The settlement, financed by Victoria’s Solution in a financial loan arrangement with BAT’s owner, could established a precedent for world wide brands to improved protect the rights of employees in their provide chains, according to Scott Nova, Govt Director of the Employee Rights Consortium, an worldwide labour advocacy group.

“World wide brands need to realise that they are not passive buyers, but craze-setters in setting labour standards,” said David Welsh, the Thailand director for the Solidarity Middle, a U.S.-primarily based workers rights’ advocacy group.

More than a year just after BAT and its Hong Kong-based mostly operator Clover Group refused to pay the laid-off Thai staff, Victoria’s Key & Co (VSCO.N)reported this 7 days in an emailed assertion. It will extend a personal loan to the house owners of Clover to finance the settlement.

It was unclear how a lot of the settlement Victoria’s Top secret would cover, declaring in the statement that BAT’s operator had been not “in a posture to conclude this make a difference on their possess” so the enterprise “agreed to advance the severance money to manufacturing facility house owners,” without the need of revealing the amount of money.

A Thai labour ministry doc found by Reuters showed the complete payment to the personnel together with similar charges was in a overall of 285.2 million baht ($8.36 million).

Clover experienced in the beginning stated the personnel should concur to wait around 10 a long time to be compensated in total.

Emily Lau, an executive of Clover and a board member of the bankrupt BAT said on Friday the payment will be created with “the private means of homeowners, Angie and Emily Lau” but did not mention the mortgage from Victoria’s Secret.

($1 = 34.1500 baht)

Reporting by Panu Wongcha-um and Panarat Thepgumpanat Modifying by Kanupriya and Nick Zieminski

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