After nearly five years of advocacy, a migrant worker who was allegedly retaliated against at a Nike supplier factory has received compensation.
For non-governmental organizations such as the Clean Clothes Campaign and Partners for Dignity and Rights, it was sustained pressure from unions, students and labor groups that ultimately forced movement on the case—leading the Just Do It giant to, well, just do it: Take accountability.
The case, dating to the early months of the Covid-19 pandemic, has become a litmus test for how global brands respond when legal compliance, worker harm and reputational risk collide. It also tests whether voluntary oversight bodies can deliver justice without external force.
Related Stories
At the center of the dispute are about 3,300 workers employed by Hong Seng Knitting in Bangkok from May through October 2020. During that period, the factory suspended operations due to pandemic shutdowns and workers were placed on furlough without pay. According to labor groups, the unpaid leave amounted to an average of roughly $172 per worker, or about two weeks’ wages.
The case rests on three central claims: management pressured workers to sign forms falsely stating they wanted voluntary unpaid leave, they were owed wages under Thai law and retaliation followed when workers resisted. In one instance, a worker leader fled to Myanmar after a police complaint was filed against him. In another case, a worker who refused unpaid leave was terminated.
Nike, which commissioned a third-party investigation and legal review in response to complaints from the advocacy organization Clean Clothes Campaign, has maintained for years that the furlough program was “consensual and voluntary” and consistent with Thai law and its own code of conduct. The company no longer sources from Hong Seng Knitting, though it maintains a relationship with Ramatex, a joint venture partner of the factory.
The Worker Rights Consortium—a Washington, D.C. watchdog group that published its own investigation into Hong Seng Knitting in 2021—has long challenged Nike’s position.
The report “Checking Boxes, Cheating Workers: How Social Auditing Firms Fail Workers” indicates that Nike commissioned a 2020 audit. Nike later stated that the audit concluded the furlough program was consensual, voluntary and consistent with local law and labor guidelines.
“This victory sends a clear message that Nike can be forced to change its position on whether compensation is owed to workers in its supply chain,” said Sarah Newell, the director of transnational strategies at the Partners for Dignity and Rights.
After years of Nike insisting that no harm was done to worker Kyaw San Oo or his coworkers, she continued, a coordinated cross-border pressure campaign shifted the outcome, leading to payment and a precedent she believes could matter for other unresolved cases. Newell pointed to the Violet Apparel factory in Cambodia, where workers are still pushing Nike and the factory owner, Ramatex, for alleged unpaid wages dating back to 2020. She argued this moment should warn brands that denial is not a defense.
“We’re in a new era where brands are being held responsible for abuses in their supply chains,” Newell said. “There’s no going back.”
According to the 2024 Hong Seng Knitting Investigation Report, there was no evidence of systematic coercion of all workers to accept unpaid leave, though the investigator found some indications of possible coercion involving a small number of employees.
“At Nike, we are deeply invested and engaged in respecting and advancing human rights. When brands, organizations and governments work together, we can help make a global impact and improve the lives of workers in global supply chains,” said former chief sustainability officer Jaycee Pribulsky in a March 2019 statement. Appointed to the role as vice president of sustainable manufacturing and sourcing at Nike last February, Pribulsky departed in September, according to her LinkedIn profile.
The Fair Labor Association (FLA) is a multi-stakeholder organization committed to promoting human rights at work by setting and improving labor standards in global supply chains, particularly within the fashion and farming sectors. The FLA accreditation process involves a thorough examination of a company’s adherence to international labor standards, serving as a benchmark for human rights compliance.
Nike joined in 1999 and has been a member ever since—and an original one at that.
“We have worked with the FLA since its inception because we know that collaboration plays an important role in driving consistent industry standards,” Pribulsky said at the time. A month earlier, in February 2019, the FLA board of directors voted to re-accredit Nike’s social compliance program for the third time.
That 2019 reaccreditation report by the FLA tallied Nike’s “continuous review and improvement of its social compliance tools and social compliance program strengths,” according to a statement the organization shared the following month. The report also noted that the industry as a whole should continue its collective focus on issues such as grievance systems and wages.
“The FLA will continue to provide programmatic recommendations to further every member’s labor compliance in support of the FLA mission to protect worker rights and ensure decent working conditions,” the joint statement reads.
The FLA investigated the case after a university-affiliated board member pressed for an inquiry.
“Our investigation into alleged labor violations at Hong Seng Knitting Co. Ltd found that workers were owed compensation for unpaid leave days dating back to 2020, during the early days of the COVID-19 global pandemic. In addition, the investigation found that two workers had not been compensated for unfair dismissal and retaliation,” the FLA’s Stacy Hope told Sourcing Journal.
“The investigation examined the allegations in the context of FLA’s Workplace Code of Conduct and Compliance Benchmarks as well as local Thai law and applied the higher of the two standards,” Hope continued. “For example, FLA principles recognize that punishing or threatening a worker who advocates for worker rights constitutes retaliation and is unacceptable, regardless of its legality under local law.”
FLA said its own investigation was more robust, though it also took WRC’s findings into account. The investigator proposed that Hong Seng Knitting and Nike provide partial compensation totaling roughly $142,800 for the unpaid leave period. Its report also recommended steps to address workplace verbal abuse and suggested limited compensation for the two workers who alleged retaliation.
The case resurfaced publicly after WRC circulated a memo to its university affiliates earlier this year, drawing attention to Nike’s implementation plan, which the FLA published in February.
“Nike is dedicated to upholding its commitments to human rights and worker welfare, while consistently striving for improvements in transparency and responsibility across our source base,” reads the FLA’s February statement. “While multiple parties concluded that the unpaid leave practice was consistent with Thai law, Nike aligned with its supplier on a proactive approach that goes above and beyond FLA recommendations for compensation at Cassia Garment and Hong Seng, by providing impacted workers with supplementary paid leave days and to further extend a financial package to affected former workers.”
Under Nike’s plan, Hong Seng Knitting and Cassia Garment will provide affected workers with compensation equivalent to roughly $211,000, delivered through a mix of cash payments and paid leave days. The worker who fled to Myanmar was originally to receive $1,746 from Nike—though he ultimately received $42,000 “for the retaliatory harm he suffered,” as documented in the WRC’s 2020 investigation at Hong Seng—while the worker who was terminated will receive $1,261.
WRC’s executive director Scott Nova described the outcome as mixed. While Nike committed to paying workers about twice the amount initially recommended by the FLA, Nova had previously said the plan still fell short. Some labor groups have raised concerns about the lack of interest in withheld wages and the form of compensation given to workers. A report from the Fair Labor Association highlighted Nike’s ongoing review and improvement of its social compliance practices and noted the commitment of Nike’s executive management and board to uphold workplace standards.
“Kyaw San Oo reached out to the WRC team, after being advised of this additional compensation, to request our advice and assistance concerning the transfer and receipt of the funds into his possession,” Nova said in a statement. “We have been assisting him and can report that some, but not yet all, of the funds have been received.”
Nike, meanwhile, continues to face criticism over unresolved claims elsewhere in its supply chain, including at the Ramatex-owned Violet Apparel factory in Cambodia, which labor groups allege abruptly closed in 2020 without paying legally owed severance.
“Nike has neither sourced from nor authorized Violet Apparel to produce Nike product since 2006,” a Nike spokesperson told SJ. “We conducted an independent investigation of the allegations that the facility was producing Nike products in 2020 and found no evidence that Nike products had been manufactured at Violet Apparel in recent years.”
That said, the WRC’s investigation report includes an entire section unpacking the validity of Nike’s statement—within a chapter aptly titled “While Nike Claims That It Had Not Sourced from Violet Apparel since 2006 and That Its Own Investigation Found No Recent Nike Production at the Factory, Overwhelming Evidence Shows Violet Apparel Made Nike Goods up until 2020.”
Advocates argued that the Hong Seng Knitting case shows how difficult it remains for workers to secure a remedy without prolonged international pressure, even when brands maintain public commitments to responsible sourcing.
“When we became aware of the allegations at Hong Seng Bangkok in 2020, we promptly worked with a third-party investigator and legal counsel to review and investigate. Since that time, multiple investigations found that the impacted workers were compensated in accordance with local law and Nike’s Code of Conduct,” a Nike spokesperson told SJ. “However, Nike often encourages its suppliers to go above and beyond legal requirements. We were glad to collaborate with involved parties to bring final resolution to this case, in alignment with the FLA’s conclusions and recommendations.”
That said, Nike’s decision to provide compensation to thousands of workers at a Thai factory after nearly five years of dispute is being framed as a resolution. But for labor advocates, the outcome raises a larger question: if a remedy comes only after sustained public pressure, what role do corporate accountability systems actually play?
“In this time of rising corporate impunity, we celebrate the fact that when workers and their allies unite across borders, we can overcome even the most entrenched resistance from global brands and suppliers and we will keep fighting to hold brands accountable,” said the Clean Clothes Campaign, a global alliance of labor unions and NGOs fighting for garment workers’ rights.
