The tenuous link between brands and suppliers once again came to the fore after this February’s devastating earthquake in Türkiye with a white paper revealing that of the 16 brands and 200+ suppliers surveyed, only two brands acted responsibly both with respect to order delays and aid to the suppliers.
- While Marks & Spencer and C&A are the only two ‘responsible’ brands, Boohoo, H&M, and s.Oliver are among the worst performers—brands that did not maintain original payment dates for delayed orders and also failed to offer any special assistance to the affected suppliers.
THE WRC WHITE PAPER: The white paper by the Worker Rights Consortium analysed responses to a recent questionnaire to brands from the Business and Human Rights Resource Center; additional information provided by brands to the WRC, and the results of a new survey of 202 garment and textile producers in the earthquake-hit zone.
- The supplier survey was conducted by the Middle Eastern Technical University’s Derya Göçer and Şerif Onur Bahçecik.
THE FINDINGS: Pressed by advocates not to punish suppliers for unavoidable delivery delays, most of the brands extended deadlines on clothing orders in production at the time of the quake.
- However, half the brands acknowledged that they did not keep to original payment schedules. This means that suppliers forced to deliver late were also paid late, exacerbating their financial situation.
- Asked whether they took any other steps to directly support suppliers, like low interest loans or grants, only six of 16 brands cited any form of assistance. And this self-reporting may overstate the brands’ generosity: less than 2% of suppliers responding to a survey by Turkish researchers reported that their customers “supported workers and producers after the quake.”
NO PAY: Among the 202 suppliers who participated in the survey:
- nearly half of the suppliers said they could not pay workers in full in the weeks after the quake;
- a third said they were forced to put workers on unpaid leave.
And not all brands extended deadlines: 35% of suppliers said they were forced to stick to original delivery schedules.
- 39% reported that neither government officials nor auditors nor brand representatives visited their factory for inspection after the earthquake.
- 69% said that they did not receive any proactive contact from buyers in the aftermath of the earthquake.
- Only five among the 202 respondents said that brands offered them and their workers any support at all after the earthquake.
- Close to half (48%) said that buyers reduced their order volume after the earthquake.
- 33% suspended their workers without pay during temporary closures.
The Brands: The following 16 brands provided responses to the WRC and/or the Business and Human Rights Resource Centre (BHRRC) on their purchasing practices following the earthquake in Türkiye. The brands in bold were reported as a buyer by suppliers interviewed by the Middle Eastern Technical University’s research team:
- Benetton
- Bestseller
- Boohoo
- C&A
- Esprit
- H&M
- Inditex
- Kiabi
- Marks & Spencer
- Next
- Primark
- PVH
- s.Oliver
- Tchibo
- Varner
- VF
The following brands did not respond to the WRC’s request for information: Good American (co-founded by Khloé Kardashian), URBN (parent company of Urban Outfitters, Anthropologie, and Free People), and IKEA.
More Revelations: Other findings from WRC’s brand response analysis:
- All 16 brands said that they did not impose penalties on their suppliers for order days resulting from the earthquake and that they adopted policies directing their sourcing teams to refrain from imposing penalties until the region has recovered.
- Only C&A and Marks & Spencer reported paying suppliers on time even in the case of delivery delays and having adopted at least one of the four following proactive assistance measures to help suppliers survive:
1. Accelerated payment on orders;
2. Improved payment terms on new orders;
3. Low-interest or no-interest financing to suppliers;
4. Direct financial assistance to suppliers. - Only four brands (Bestseller, C&A, Kiabi, and Marks & Spencer) said they provided financial assistance to the families of Tier 1 and Tier 2 workers who had been killed in the earthquake.
- Boohoo did not take any steps to ensure that the Tier 1 and Tier 2 factories the company sources from in the earthquake-hit region were structurally safe.
WHAT THEY SAID:
While many leading apparel brands extended delivery deadlines, they could have and should have done much more. With a few notable exceptions, the world’s apparel brands looked at the calamity in their Turkish supply chains and basically decided to abandon workers to their fate.
— Scott Nova
Executive Director
Worker Rights Consortium
