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Over 1,000 Thai workers for a garment firm related to Victoria’s Secret and different prime vogue manufacturers acquired an $8.3 million settlement this month, the largest-ever wage theft settlement for a single garment manufacturing facility, a nonprofit group stated.

The roughly 1,250 employees had been laid off through the pandemic from provider Sensible Alliance Thai, which in the end folded in March 2021 with out providing severance pay. The manufacturing facility agreed to dole out $8.3 million, a record-breaking settlement, based on the Solidarity Heart, which advocates employees’ rights.

“Low-wage garment employees left destitute by injustice meted out by world provide chains is nothing new,” David Welsh, the Thailand nation director of the Solidarity Heart, advised the G3 Field Information. ”What’s new is they didn’t settle for their destiny — and gained.”

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Victoria’s Secret agreed to assist finance the settlement by offering a mortgage to the defunct provider’s proprietor, based on a latest Reuters report.

“Over a number of months, we had been in lively communication with the manufacturing facility house owners to facilitate a decision,” Victoria’s Secret stated in a press release obtained by the G3 Field Information. “We remorse they weren’t in the end able to conclude this matter on their very own so to make sure the employees acquired their full severance quantities owed, Victoria’s Secret agreed to advance the severance funds to the manufacturing facility house owners.”

The manufacturing facility produced lingerie and different clothes merchandise for a number of prime U.S. manufacturers, corresponding to Lane Bryant and Torrid. When the corporate folded through the pandemic, the laid-off employees didn’t obtain severance pay as required beneath Thai legislation, per a number of studies.

Victoria’s Secret seems to be the one main model that contributed to the settlement, although it isn’t clear how a lot it contributed. The Washington Examiner reached out to the corporate for remark.

Thailand ordered Clover Group, the manufacturing facility’s proprietor, to pay severance inside 30 days of letting the employees go, but it surely declined, arguing it had inadequate funds to pay them and requested to have 10 years to pay them again. For over a yr, the employees fought again with assist from the Triumph Worldwide Union.

G3 Field Information

Advocates hope the victory will set a precedent for different employees.

“We would like extra manufacturers to do the identical as a result of sadly this is not going to be the final of its type — there will probably be many, many extra instances,” Welsh added.