PVH, the US clothing firm that owns Tommy Hilfiger and Calvin Klein, has said that it will be investigating the reports of labour abuse from Ethiopian factories that manufacture clothes for the high-fashion brands.
There have been reports of garment workers in PVH supplier factories in Ethiopia facing regular verbal abuse, with many of them even earning as less as 12 cents every hour. (Also read https://vn.apparelresources.com/business-news/sustainability/brands-not-pressurise-garment-suppliers-avoid-worker-exploitation-vietnam-fla/)
Substantiating further, the Workers Rights Consortium (WRC), a US-based independent labour rights monitoring organisation, said in its report that the workers were not only forced to do overtime but also had to lose money for drinking water at their workstations.
The report added that in one of the factories, the hiring managers even touched the stomach of job applicants to check if they were pregnant.
Based on the above report, a PVH spokesperson said that the firm will be strictly probing into this matter and will take necessary action in case of any violation. Though PVH has taken up the issue seriously, the firm believes that some of the interviews were old.
A study conducted on Ethiopia by the WageIndicator Foundation in January 2019 found that majority of 1,000 garment factory workers it surveyed earned less than a monthly living wage of US $ 143.90.
No officials from the Prime Minister’s Office and Ethiopia’s Labor Ministry were available for comments.
