Hanes accused of underpaying Haitian garment workers

Clothing brand Hanes is underfire after it has been accused

of under paying its garment workers in Haiti. Garment factories in Haiti are currently struggling to revive the country's economy, after it was hit by major earthquake back in 2010.

A report published in October by the Worker Rights Consortium (WRC), an independent labor rights monitoring organization, reported that “the majority of Haitian garment workers are being denied nearly a third of the wages they are legally due as a result of the factories' theft of their income”. Factories are accused of stealing wages in three ways; paying wages for overtime that is based on an hourly rate below the minimum wage, setting production quotas impossibly high and not paying workers overtime.

The report also stated that a number of North American apparel brands and retailers, such as Gap, Hanes, Gilden, Levi's, Russell and Walmart purchases garments from Haitian factories and adds “although most, if not all, of these firms are well-aware of this law-breaking, they continue with business as usual profiting from the lower prices they can obtain from factories that cheat their workers of legally owed wages”.

According to a news release sent out by SumOfUs, a worldwide collective that focuses on holding corporations accountable for their actions, two apparel companies Russell and Gildan have agreed to meet this week with labor rights advocates and representatives form Haitian union to work out a plan to pay garment workers what they are owned.

However Hanes, who was invited to join the meeting, turned down its invitation. The company adds that Hanes has a checkered past of denying its Haitian workers livable wages, two years ago Wikileaks revealed that the brand lobbied against the U.S State Department to prevent Haiti from increasing its minimum wage to 5 dollars a day.

SumOfUs argues that Hanes could help its garment workers get the money they deserve, but instead is hiding behind a defense that it did not break any laws. The company has launched an online petition to bring attention to the cause and pressure Hanes to compensate its garment workers.