Hong Seng Knitting

Hong Seng Knitting: A Story of Wage Theft and Retaliation

Workers at the Hong Seng Knitting garment factory in Thailand who sew university logo apparel for Nike have been subjected to abuse, wage theft and retaliation by factory management from May - October 2020. A report from the Worker Rights Consortium uncovers an illegal wage theft scheme that deprived workers of nearly $600,000 in legally mandated wages, an average of $172, or more than 15 days’ wages, per worker. With interest, that figure is more than $800,000.

The violations stemmed from the factory’s desire to evade a law that sustains workers’ income during periods of low production. Under the law, if a factory temporarily suspends workers, it has to pay them a reduced wage, so workers still have some income to support their families.

After the pandemic caused a drop in orders, factory management compelled workers to sign a form falsely stating that they wanted to take voluntary unpaid leave. There is overwhelming evidence that the leave was involuntary and that the scheme was illegal. Many workers have testified that they were pressured to sign the forms. The Thai government ruled that the forms do not constitute a lawful basis to deny workers their wages.

When some workers resisted signing, management responded with threats of dismissal, other forms of retaliation and intimidation. Factory management retaliated against a Burmese migrant worker who stood up for his rights by reporting him to the police. The worker had written to other workers via Facebook messenger expressing concern about the wage theft. Fearing unjust imprisonment in a country where police treatment of migrant workers is often both arbitrary and brutal, the worker was compelled to flee the country with his wife and infant son.

Nike claims that most workers volunteered to take unpaid leave, calling the furlough program “consensual and voluntary”, despite the pressure workers were experiencing and the financial stress they were under. The company has no explanation for why hundreds of workers would freely choose to give up wages to which they were legally entitled.

Five years after the wage theft occurred, Nike finally agreed that remedy to the workers was due. Its plan of action however continues to be inadequate, especially towards the worker who was forced to flee the country, Kyaw San Oo. It is therefore important to keep the pressure on Nike to ensure that workers are made whole in this case as well as other cases of wage theft in Nike’s supply chain.

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