Largest settlement of migrant worker recruitment fees in any one company - how did we get there?
Cal-Comp Thailand, supplier of printers, external hard disk drives and other computer peripherals, was in the limelight recently after 10,570 migrant factory workers in two facilities received full compensation for excessive recruitment fees they had paid. What happened in this case? What lessons does it offer about remediating debt bondage and forced labour in global supply chains? What remains to be done? Read Cal-Comp: A Lesson in the Importance of Worker-Driven Monitoring to End Forced Labour in Global Supply Chains.
MWRN training in Myanmar for migrant workers bound for Thailand
The settlement followed three years of worker-driven monitoring by Electronics Watch and our monitoring partner, the Migrant Worker Rights Network, and ongoing reporting to, and dialogue with, buyers and Cal-Comp. The core lesson of the case is this: companies do not end forced labour in their supply chains on their own without the involvement of workers and civil society, but companies’ commitment to do so by using their collective leverage is indispensable.