Foreign Migrant Workers

Why

Some of Patagonia’s suppliers in Taiwan, Japan, Thailand and South Korea hire foreign migrant workers to take jobs in their factories. This is a common legal practice in relatively small countries where there aren’t enough domestic workers to fill manufacturing jobs.

But more often than not, employers are using third-party labor brokers who charge foreign migrant workers thousands of dollars simply to get hired. These workers are desperately seeking jobs and are lured by the prospect of earning a wage several times what they are able to make in their home country, and labor brokers take advantage of this situation. After the workers pay the fee, they become vulnerable to bonded labor and forced labor while in a new country. Employers favor this system because the recruiting is done by a third party with the cost typically paid by the worker.

At Patagonia, we see this problem mainly in our contracted fabric mills in Taiwan. In almost all cases, our suppliers are hiring a sizable portion of their workforce from Thailand, Vietnam, the Philippines and/or Indonesia with the help of third-party labor brokers. We know these workers are being charged up to $7,000 for their jobs, depending on their home country and on the labor broker.

Patagonia is committed to eradicating all forms of human trafficking and forced labor in our company’s supply chain. As soon as we discovered these deep-rooted issues in 2012, we began working with our suppliers to eliminate those fees. In a broader context, we are collaborating with other apparel brands and industry organizations to improve migrant-worker conditions. We know these issues are widespread and require systemic changes that no one company can bring about alone.

Where We Are

Since 2013, we have had two employees who oversee all the work we do to limit these practices across our workforce–one based in Ventura, California, and one in Taiwan. Our Migrant Worker Program uses several strategies to drive change.

• We developed Migrant Worker Employment Standards for our supply chain. These standards outline our expectations of ethical recruitment and employment practices with regard to migrant workers. We were one of the first apparel brands to develop a comprehensive migrant-worker standard in December 2014, and we made it available online. It has been adopted in part or in full by other brands. The standards were revised and further enhanced in October 2020 after being reviewed and analyzed by in-house and third-party experts, including Verité and the Fair Labor Association®. The updated standards capture recent guidance on migrant workers from the UN’s International Labour Organization, the Fair Labor Association and the US government. You can find Version 2.0 at this link. We will continue to work with our suppliers to implement the standards in full.
• We have an ongoing partnership with Verité, an expert supply chain NGO that is helping us with everything from understanding the hiring process and the employment laws to training our suppliers and auditing them.
• We started a brand collaboration with other prominent outdoor and apparel companies to move the industry toward “responsible recruitment” in Taiwan. Getting the industry on board has made a significant impact on our progress.
• We engage with the public sector, including governments and NGOs. For example, we work with the Taiwan Ministry of Labor and its Direct Hiring Service Center, which offers employers the ability to hire foreign migrant workers directly, eliminating the need for labor brokers. We also work with Finnwatch, a Finnish organization that focuses on human rights and the climate impacts of businesses, and their local partner in Thailand. Together we communicate about any worker issues that arise and look for viable solutions in partnership with our suppliers.

While much of this work is focused on Taiwan, our migrant-worker standards and program apply to our global supply chain.

What’s Next

Our work over the last decade-plus has resulted in meaningful impact for migrant workers in our supply chain, yet we know more needs to be done to scale and sustain the change. The most effective tool to make that happen is with legislation that protects migrant workers and upholds responsible recruitment practices. That is why we are working closely with multi-stakeholder groups, the apparel and textile industry, and the Taiwanese government to explore and develop policies to address migrant worker vulnerabilities, like prohibiting fees for workers and eliminating penalties for unfinished contracts. We are committed to this advocacy for the long term.

Using worker feedback and audit data, we will also continue to address the most pressing needs for workers in our supply chain. We know that effective brand collaborations can make change happen faster at the facility level and we are actively seeking like-minded brands to partner with so we can leverage greater, more widespread change together.