The current Covid-19 crisis show how vulnerable garment workers are. For them, one of the biggest impacts of the pandemic is on their wages. In many garment producing countries, factories are forced to (temporarily) stop production: because they are forced to do so by their governments, because workers are quarantined, or because they lose orders due to problems further down the supply chain (e.g. shops closing, limits on transportation). During such stoppages, many workers are without income. Even if local governments require employers to pay workers regular wages during work stoppage, workers might not get what they are legally owed. For example, most garment workers in China and Eastern Europe are paid by piece-rate. They may not receive any pay since there was no work.

Read more about the impact of the pandemic on the industry and about what brands can do in this Covid19 dossier.

The Fair Wear Foundation

Together with garment brands and other industry players the Fair Wear Foundation works on better labour conditions for the people who make clothes. Although you don’t know them and they don’t know you, we’re connected through what we’re wearing. The men and women working in clothing factories often are still employed under dangerous, precarious and abusive conditions for poverty wages. That is why this foundation pushes towards a new normal, where workers feel safe and respected and receive a salary that is enough to provide for their families. Fair Wear brands show that there is a better way to make clothes, a way that puts the people who make them front and centre. The Fair Wear Foundation is determined to make that the new normal.