The Campaign for Clean Clothes Germany, together with the Croatian trade union Novi Sindikat, is filing an official complaint against the clothing supplier Olymp Bezner KG.
The network, which advocates for workers’ rights in the fashion industry’s supply chains, said it was filing a complaint against the German company on Wednesday with the National Contact Point for the OECD Guidelines in Berlin. In it, the plaintiffs are demanding compensation payments for 172 workers who lost their jobs due to the closure of the Olymp supplier factory Orljava in Croatia.
The clothing supplier canceled its long-standing orders at the factory in October 2020 – until then, the shirt manufacturer was the largest customer. As a result, the Orljava factory was forced to declare bankruptcy and dismissed employees without notice and without severance pay. After protests in Croatia, the Croatian government responded to the workers’ demands and paid them statutory severance pay in March this year. Olympus has not taken any action yet.
Olymp: Violation of the OECD Guidelines
With the lawsuit, the campaign, together with the affected workers, wants to challenge the company’s violation of the company’s principles Industrialized nations organization OECD which were also adopted by the German government. The organization’s guiding principles are intended to “minimize possible negative impacts in connection with a company’s business activities, products or services” and thereby “promote the positive contribution of companies to economic, environmental and social progress,” according to the website of the Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and climate protection. The principles cover, among other things, the areas of labor and human rights as well as disclosure.
By failing to take measures such as severance payments for workers following termination of the business relationship with the factory, Olymp “breached its appropriate risk-based due diligence” and “failed to meaningfully involve relevant stakeholders in its withdrawal,” according to the plaintiffs.
“We are glad that the Croatian government has shown responsibility, but we also expect Olymp, as the exclusive foreign buyer, to stand up for the former employees of Orljava, many of whom are still unemployed today,” explains Mario Ivekovic from Novi Sindikat.