WHAT IS THE #PAYUP CAMPAIGN?
The clothing industry faced disruptions at the onset of coronavirus, with stores closed around the world and consumer demand in dramatic decline. Many major clothing brands and retailers chose to push their financial fallout onto garment workers and factories. In Bangladesh alone, brands cancelled or put on hold over $3 billion worth of completed and in-process clothing orders, putting more than two million workers jobs at risk. The #PayUp campaign demands that brands pay for in-production and completed orders in full and on time, including fabric that factories have already paid for, rather than abandon their supply chain partners and the women who have kept their businesses profitable for decades. This is money rightly owed to factories for work that's already been done or for costs already incurred on behalf of brands and retailers. With no source of income, millions of women who sew our clothes will end up starving on the streets of supplier countries, like Bangladesh, Cambodia and even the United States.
HOW TO PARTICIPATE IN #PAYUP
Tens of thousands of outraged citizens have joined the #PayUp campaign around the world. You can participate, too! @Remake.World on Instagram has resources for tagging and calling out brands. You can sign one of the petitions above, or hop on social media, tag any one of the laggard brands above and ask them to make a public commitment to #PayUp for existing orders and to support garment workers: Dear @BRANDNAME, as a concerned citizen, I demand that you #PayUp and make a public commitment to pay in full for all completed and in-production clothing orders in your supplier factories. This is money fairly owed to factories and garment workers, and the people who make your products might not survive without it.
WHO IS BEHIND #PAYUP?
The #PayUp movement brings together numerous labor rights groups and individual activists. Anyone can join. Among the groups pressuring brands to #PayUp are Remake, the Clean Clothes Campaign, Labour Behind the Label, the International Labor Rights Forum, and the United Students Against Sweatshops, and Extinction Rebellion! Feel free to create your own #PayUp campaign mentioning one of the brands above.
HOW DID #PAYUP START?
The #PayUp hashtag was used by labor rights groups after the Rana Plaza building collapse in Bangladesh to call on brands and retailers to pay full and fair compensation to injured workers and families of the deceased. In the context of the coronavirus, the #PayUp hashtag is used to demand brands pay for cancelled orders in their supplier factories. A March 2020 report by the PennState Center for Global Worker Rights and the Worker Rights Consortium surveyed over 300 supplier factories in Bangladesh, which highlighted the disastrous impacts created by cancellations in one garment-producing country. Among the report's findings: In a majority of factories, brands had cancelled completed and in-process orders, refused to pay for sewing or fabric, and most factories had to close down and let go of workers without pay. Among the factories experiencing cancellations, 91.3% of buyers refused to pay for sewing, and about three-fourths refused to pay for fabric. What's more, the report found that the brands involved were huge global companies, including Primark, Target (USA), VF Corporation, H&M, Inditex/Zara, PVH, JC Penney, Marks & Spencer and others, amounting to over $1 billion in cancelled orders. After receiving the report’s findings, some brands agreed to #PayUp, including H&M, Inditex/Zara, PVH, and VF, and after the report’s publication additional brands like Marks & Spencer changed course. But the list of brands cancelling orders has also grown in the weeks since. The #PayUp movement brings together labor rights groups and individual activists to urge ALL brands and retailers to protect garment workers impacted by the coronavirus.
Help save the lives of millions of women. Demand brands #PayUp.