Tens of thousands of garment workers who were sacked as the pandemic hit factory orders are owed millions of dollars in severance pay, with many struggling to feed their families as they wait, labour rights advocates said on Tuesday. A study found 31 factories supplying clothes to leading global brands owed 40,000 laid-off workers about $40 million in severance pay to which they were entitled, the U.S.-based Workers Rights Consortium (WRC) said. "Some garment workers have waited an entire year for their severance and can't feed their children," Liana Foxvog, crisis response director at the WRC and the main author of the report, said in a statement. "The long-term problem of repeated severance theft in the garment industry has reached a brutal crescendo during COVID-19," she added. The report was based on a sample of 400 factories in 18 nations that were either closed or saw mass layoffs during the pandemic. Fashion companies cancelled orders worth billions of dollars last year as the coronavirus outbreak shuttered stores worldwide, leading to wage losses estimated at least $3.2 billion. The WRC also found initial evidence that suggested workers in a further 210 factories had not been paid, but was not able to conduct further investigation to confirm non-payment. Calling its findings "(the) tip of an iceberg", the WRC estimated that garment workers in factories worldwide could miss out on at least $500 million in severance during the pandemic.

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