"WRC Engagement with Target Secures Compensation for Seven Unlawfully Fired Employees, Restores Stolen Severance Rights for 400 Workers at Supplier JNB Global in Guatemala", 2 March 2023

JNB Global, a garment factory in Guatemala that supplies Target Stores, has provided legally owed severance and back pay to workers whom the factory unlawfully fired in February 2021, and it has restored severance and seniority rights for the factory’s entire workforce of 400 employees...

...JNB Global violated worker rights when, in late 2020, it required all of the factory’s workers to sign new employment contracts that illegally falsified their dates of hire—depriving them of substantial accrued severance and seniority rights. It further violated their rights when, in early 2021, JNB Global unlawfully fired a number of factory employees who refused to sign the new, illegal contracts...

After more than 18 months of extensive engagement with Target concerning the WRC’s findings and recommendations for corrective action, Target commissioned an external audit that confirmed the WRC’s conclusion that its supplier, JNB Global, had committed clear violations of workers’ rights that must be remedied.

On Monday, February 20, 2023...the seven workers who had been dismissed for protesting the falsified contracts—who, in the interim, had informed the WRC that they no longer wished to return to the factory—received compensation from JNB in the form of two years’ back wages and legally required severance payments. Moreover, for all the factory’s current workforce, JNB has replaced the illegal, falsified contracts with new employment agreements that correctly state their original dates of hire and, thereby, restores their full rights to severance and other seniority-based benefits...

Workers at JNB had reported that the factory was also a supplier to Torrid, an apparel company owned by the US private equity firm, Sycamore Partners. The WRC contacted Sycamore Partners and asked the company to also engage with JNB Global to ensure the remediation of the violations. Torrid informed the WRC that it had undertaken a review of the alleged violations but had not, at the time of this publication, completed its investigation. Torrid affirmed to the WRC its commitment to ensuring non-exploitative work practices...