Uniqlo has admitted it has found “issues” with a Chinese mainland garment maker, in the wake of a damning NGO report.
On January 11, Students & Scholars Against Misbehaviour (Sacom), a Hong Kong-based non-governmental organisation, published a report claiming issues with working conditions at factories of Donguang Luenthai Garment Co and Pacific Textile, which supply products for Uniqlo, part of the Fast Retailing Group. Sacom claims to have found evidence of worker exploitation including long hours and poor working conditions.
“Fast Retailing first learned of the Sacom report at the end of last year, and we moved quickly in view of the serious nature of its claims, by conducting an independent inspection of both facilities,” Uniqlo said in a statement issued this week.
“We confirm that, regrettably, the inspection found several problems including long working hours.”
Fast Retailing said it understands the main issues in the report relate to factories of Dongguan Tomwell Garment Co, which manufacture garments for Uniqlo in the Guangdong Province, and Pacific (Pan Yu) Textiles, which supplies textiles to garment factories.
“The Fast Retailing Group is committed to building long-term trust with its production partners, while at the same time respecting human rights and ensuring appropriate working conditions for the employees of its production partners. We monitor working conditions at garment suppliers periodically based on our Code of Conduct for Production Partners, which we established in fiscal year 2004,” the company said.
“We also draw on our Environmental Standards for Textiles Factories in monitoring environmental impact of factories that supply textiles to our production partners, to minimise any impact and ensure the health and safety of workers at those facilities. We disclose results through our CSR reports and via other methods.”
But Fast Retailing says the inspection did not reveal some of the problems stated in the Sacom report and the two parties have different views on some of the issues described in the report.
“In view of this situation, Fast Retailing is continuing with the inspection, and we are requesting Sacom to open a dialogue with us as soon as possible.”
With regard to the problems confirmed by Uniqlo’s inspectors, Fast Retailing said it had urged the two factories to resolve them “immediately” and promised to check progress within one month, as part of an ongoing effort to seek improvement.
“We will take strict action if progress has not been made, including a review of whether to engage them in any future business.
“In addition, we will validate our processes for monitoring working conditions and will consider introducing the same process within the next few months at textile facilities that we do not currently monitor,” the Japanese company said.
