“Thousands of garment workers at Next Collections factory in Bangladesh worked until well past 10 p.m. every day and sometimes until 5 a.m. or later making children’s skinny jeans and jeggings for Gap Inc.’s Old Navy stores. Phony pay stubs; make-believe 10-hour shifts; pregnant women cheated of maternity benefits; workers cheated of 15 percent of their overtime wages….When workers spoke up for their rights, they are forced to resign without pay and threatened.” are some of the unethical actions that are taking place in a factory in Bangladesh, which was mentioned in an article, “Gap and Old Navy in Bangladesh“.
GAP, an American multinational clothing and accessories retailer, is a well renowned brand in the fashion industry. Even though the company is so big that they have 135,000 employees and have 3,076 stores worldwide. They still lack the ethics and this is clearly seen in the paragraph above. The factory, called New Collections, where these unethical acts were taking place, is GAP’s main supplier in Bangladesh. They have been trying to increase their profits by lowering their costs and maximizing the production, even if that puts their employees in harms-way. New Collections is earning on a fixed margin, but to increase their earnings, they had to lower costs even further, but this couldn’t have been achieved without taking away all the fringe benefits and good working conditions from the employees. What they are doing is illegal as they are breaking the law. One of the workers was pregnant but was still forced to work 100 hours every week which made her child die within 7 months.
These incidences have hindered not only New Collections reputation and image in the industry, but also GAP’s reputation and image. This will discourage people to buy their products and can make them suffer a lot. But GAP has taken actions to help clean New Collections mess by giving maternity benefits and firing the abusive managers who ill-treated the workers. Hopefully GAP isn’t late to save their reputation in the industry as it is already so competitive.
