Ralph Lauren Purple Label Men’s Spring 2020
Abercrombie & Fitch Co. and Ralph Lauren will temporarily furlough retail workers and cut corporate salaries because of challenges presented by the COVID-19 pandemic. This announcement is in line with other retail giants who have put most of their retail workers on furlough.
Ralph Lauren closed its North America stores in mid-March while it kept most of its employees on full salary. This compensation also applied to some of the company’s stores in Europe.
That is all about to change. On April 11, Ralph Lauren will put its retail employees and some of its corporate workers on temporary unpaid furlough. Furloughed employees will continue to receive regular benefits and have access to the company’s Employee Relief Fund.
Abercrombie & Fitch Co. has also closed stores in North America and had kept its employees on full salary since mid-March. As of April 12, retail employees will be temporarily furloughed without pay and some corporate associates will receive a 15% decrease in salary.
Image courtesy of wwd.com
Another one bites the dust
The coronavirus pandemic has caused e-retailer The Modist to shut their site down permanently. “The global pandemic crisis that hit the world shifted our position entirely and rendered our young business very vulnerable, which left us with no choice but to close down,” explained The Modist founder and chief executive officer Ghizlan Guenez on Instagram.
Launched in 2017, The Modist was one of the most promising e-commerce luxury sites in some years with investment from Nicola Bulgari, Farfetch, the Chalhoub Group, and Valtier 7. In just a small amount of time The Modest stockiest lists included Jil Sander, Burberry, and Marni.
Still, The Modist was a small e-commerce luxury site compared to Modi Operandi and Net-a-Porter. The COVID-19 pandemic has had a deleterious effect on the fashion industry, and that includes brick-and-mortar stores as well as online stores and e-commerce. Unfortunately, The Modist has fallen by the wayside.
Image courtesy of npr.com
Bangladesh layoffs increases poverty
Thousands of Bangladeshi garment workers have been laid off as orders from Western fashion brands have dwindled due to the coronavirus pandemic. Garment workers had already experienced a 10-day break enforced by the government. When the workers returned to their factory jobs, they were expecting to be back to business as usual.
That was not the case. Most garment workers were notified that they were laid off. “When they reached the factories this morning, most of the workers were told that they were laid off or that the factory would resume after the shutdown,” said Khadiza Akter, vice president of the union Sommilito Garments Sramik Federation. “They didn’t have to come back. They could have been told on the phone about the factory closures,” she said.
Bangladesh’s version of unemployment insurance pales in comparison to unemployment in Western countries. Though Bangladesh’s labor law guarantees to pay workers a portion of their wages until factories reopen, with wages being extremely to begin with, this protracted layoff will push impoverished workers deep into poverty.
Because of the impoverished state of garment workers, workers are call on the government and factory owners to help the factory workers until the pandemic passes. “Everything is more expensive because of the coronavirus as it is, and now if my salary decreases, I don’t know how I will survive,” said Babul Rahman, a garment worker.
Bangladeshi’s Ministry of Labour and Employment has asked factory owners not to lay workers off but pay them a full salary through April 12. “We know that there have been some issues, but we are hopeful that the owners will accept our request,” said a ministry spokesman Shib Nath Roy in a recent fashionnetwork.com article.
—William S. Gooch
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