Major brands forced to pay up $22 billion of cancelled contracts

A women-led labour campaign became the most successful of its kind in fashion history as brands coughed up billions of dollars which were owed to garment workers.

The #PayUp campaign was spearheaded by Remake and was a movement in 2020 which grew into a global coalition of garment workers, union leaders, citizens and activists, demanding fashion brands to take responsibility and ‘pay up’ the $40 billion owed to garment factories around the world.

The first few months of the Covid-19 pandemic led companies to cancel an estimated $40 billion worth of apparel orders, even though many of them had already been completed and shipped. After cancelling the orders, brands refused to compensate for countless hours of completed work, leaving workers struggling to afford to live.

The news began to spread across the media and led labour rights groups and activists around the world to work together to push for the money to be paid by the different brands who were responsible, demonstrating how powerful social media and viral hashtags can be when action needs to be taken.

By summer 2020, the campaign was viral and two years on, the pressure from the public has resulted in the recovery of $22 billion of cancelled contracts from 25 major brands, including H&M, Zara, Urban Outfitters, Calvin Klein, and Levi’s.

Photo credit: Remake