Department of Labour’s Wage and Hour Division in USA has been trying to resolve the wage violation issue since very long. And now, the department has devised a new strategy to counter this problem by analysing the prices that retailers pay for clothing, and tracing those prices all the way down to supply chain. This method is helping the investigators to figure out which all companies in the chain are at fault, the department states.
Ruben Rosalez, Western Regional Administrator of the division while studying the issue pointed out, “They’re all blaming each other. The contractor’s complaining that they don’t get enough money to pay. The manufacturer says they’re not getting enough money to pay the contractor, and they’re basically blaming everything on the retailers.”
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The issue is in the limelight since the department issued a judgement against a Vernon-based clothing manufacturer called YN Apparel, which supplies clothes to Ross Dress for Less stores. The organisation while scrutinizing the issue found many flaws in the pay across the entire supply chain. The organisation deputed an expert David Weil, Wage and Hour Division’s National Administrator to study the prices Ross paid to YN Apparel for wholesale clothing. He also studied the amount YN paid to its contractors, who then hired garment tailors to do the work.
Elaborating more on the issue, David said, “We watched different steps in the process for specific goods we knew were bound ultimately for Ross stores. We did our analysis of the labour time in each step.” He further explained the Ross chain was paying about half of what it should to YN, and YN was paying about a third of what it should to its contractors. Eventually the judgement was passed against the YN Apparel. According to David, the new strategy will emerge as a significant tool for retailers like Ross to raise issues related to wages in a more professional and strategic manner.
