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After a pressure campaign that engaged a broad coalition of student activists, women’s and human rights organizations, Gap Inc. has finally ensured that the 14 women who were illegally fired from its Haitian supplier have received remedy. Workers received a total of approximately $40,000 in back wages – equivalent to 22 months of wages per worker –  as well as commitments to be first in line for job openings at the factory.

The case began when the Willbes factory, a supplier to Gap’s Old Navy brand, laid off 900 workers in July 2024. While some workers were allowed to transfer to new positions in the factory, five pregnant workers and nine women union leaders were forced out, a violation of Haitian law, which includes protections for both pregnant workers and union leaders in the case of layoffs, as detailed in an earlier blog post. ¹

When the Worker Rights Consortium, an independent investigative body, first approached Gap Inc. whose brand Old Navy was produced at the factory, the company backed its supplier’s unbelievable claims that pregnant workers and union leaders chose to be fired. 

As one of the illegally fired union leaders said, “Although the factory owners know that their abuse of workers violates our rights, they feel emboldened to act without consequences if workers do not have support to fight against them.” This win puts factory owners – and brands – on notice. In this era of growing corporate impunity, when we come together, we can win.

Global Campaign Wins for Illegally Fired Women Workers

Gap chose to stonewall workers, human rights advocates, and university students with Students for International Labor Solidarity who organized over 12 demonstrations across 5 stores and at Gap corporate headquarters in San Francisco for months. Meanwhile, the illegally fired workers struggled to make ends meet. “As a mother, it hurts because your children depend on you, yet you can’t take care of them properly,” said one woman. Another woman told us of her struggles to buy food for her children. Still another said, “My oldest, my daughter, was sent home because I couldn’t pay her [school] fees, and she missed her winter exams as a result. She still has not returned to school because I cannot afford to send her back.”

No worker should have to wait nearly two years for her pay – especially when Gap CEO Rick Dickson could have personally paid out the full sum owed to all workers with less than 2.5 days of his annual salary.

Finally, after months of campaigning, Gap changed course. As of today, workers have received the full 22 months of back wages they are owed. We will be watching reports from the WRC to ensure that Gap’s supplier makes good on its promise to rehire workers.

Meanwhile, Gildan, named publicly for the first time in a May 2026 report from the WRC, refused to require Willbes to take action. 

Haitian Garment Workers Can’t Pay the Price for Fashion’s Profits

The delay in pay and the job losses have hit workers hard. As one of the illegally fired union leaders explained:

“This compensation is especially important because of the difficult situation in Haiti. Personally, it has helped me because I have three children who need to go to school, eat every day, and have clothes. I used the compensation to help provide for those needs.

The situation in Haiti is also very difficult because of the high cost of gas. As a result, everything has become more expensive. Even small businesses are no longer profitable because transportation costs for products have become so high. The compensation helped me cover many of the expenses related to my small business.”

Until the wage increase announced this month, wages for Haitian garment workers have been no more than $5.25 per day (685 Haitian gourdes), leaving workers struggling to make ends meet. Even the most recent wage increase doesn’t keep pace with Haiti’s hyperinflation, leaving workers earning less than they did the last time the wage was updated.²

Meanwhile, brands continue to reap the benefits of low manufacturing costs just offshore from U.S. markets. These low wages are a direct result of pressure from U.S. fashion brands. In 2011, Wikileaks documents showed how contractors for U.S. brands and U.S. government agencies pushed the Haitian president to keep garment workers’ wages low, undercutting Haitian democracy and workers’ livelihoods.

Today, Haitian workers remain the lowest paid in the hemisphere with the highest rates of poverty.

No worker should be illegally fired and forced to wait nearly two years for their wages. Yet the history of U.S. brands’ engagement to keep Haitian workers in poverty and without even the smallest safety net to weather such a wait makes this case particularly egregious. 

The past two years have been a particularly difficult time for Haitian workers. Haiti has experienced crisis upon crisis with mounting political instability. In 2025, more than 1.4 million people were forced to flee their homes due to violence. Rampant underemployment and low wages mean an estimated 5.7 million people cannot afford food. Amidst this crisis, the U.S. allowed key trade agreements to lapse for a number of months. Without consistent and ongoing duty-free access to U.S. markets, Haiti is in jeopardy of losing the apparel sector which makes up 90% of the country’s formal employment. Factory layoffs mean workers, especially women, struggle to find new jobs as concern about brands pulling manufacturing for even lower cost countries has spread. 

In the spring of 2026, Haitian workers continue to struggle, organizing to demand higher wages to keep pace with spiraling inflation. U.S. brands must support living wages for the workers who sew their clothes. Haitian garment workers can’t be the ones to ensure the U.S. fashion industry is profitable.

Better Work Haiti: Management-centered “Investigation” Delays Remedy for Workers

Part of the reason that the 14 women in this case were forced to wait nearly two years to be paid their legally-owed wages was the involvement of Better Work Haiti, a joint initiative of the International Labour Organization (ILO) and the International Finance Corporation (IFC).³ As part of their independent investigation, the WRC contacted Better Work Haiti about the illegal firings of the pregnant women and union leaders. Despite clear evidence to the contrary, Better Work Haiti told the WRC that the firings had been legal. 

Under pressure from activists, Gap and Gildan requested that Better Work Haiti conduct an assessment of the firings. Better Work Haiti issued a report that repeated the factory management’s preposterous claims that the pregnant workers and union leaders had voluntarily chosen to be fired.

When we contacted the union representative for the illegally fired workers, he stated that he was “astonished” that Better Work was involved in the case as he had not heard from them. Likewise, the WRC stated that none of the workers they spoke with were interviewed about the process of their dismissals by Better Work Haiti as part of its investigation. It is utterly outrageous that Better Work Haiti would claim to have done any sort of investigation in a case without asking the impacted workers about how they lost their jobs.

As discussed at length in our report, Checking Boxes, Cheating Workers: How Social Audit Firms are Complicit in Labor Abuses, interviewing impacted workers about the alleged violation is a critical part of any fact-finding investigation into worker rights abuses. Allegations of discrimination and potential freedom of association violations or retaliatory activity against union members require especially careful interviewing and investigation as the mere threat of retaliation can make workers less likely to speak up. 

Yet in this case, one needn’t even discuss methodology – Better Work did not even bother to interview workers about the relevant facts, apparently choosing simply to take factory management’s word on the process of the dismissals. Whether the choice was due to incompetence or made with the deliberate intention to uphold the management perspective is unclear. One Haitian union leader gave some context, noting that,

“Generally, Better Work adopts an approach based on cooperation with employers and progressive remediation rather than binding mechanisms or public sanctions. While this approach can, in some cases, lead to improvements, it also raises persistent concerns about the risk of prioritizing stable relationships with factories and brands at the expense of fully acknowledging violations of workers’ rights, particularly in cases of unfair dismissal or retaliation.”

Better Work Haiti’s own data shows that its conduct in this case was inadequate. In its most recent report on factory conditions in Haiti, a full 80% of factories evaluated had violations related to terminations. Even the simplest risk-based analysis would suggest that something might well have been wrong at the Willbes factory.  

This case suggests that workers, advocates, and companies should be skeptical of Better Work investigations, both in Haiti and, potentially, in the ten other key apparel manufacturing countries where they operate. 

Conclusion

The illegally fired workers at Gap’s supplier have finally received the wages they are owed. This victory is due to the WRC’s investigation and brand engagement, the advocacy of workers’ union, SOTA-BO, and the relentless public pressure campaign of allies across the U.S. As rising autocracy and political instability in both countries create chaos, low-wage women workers are disproportionately harmed by the growing polycrisis. Amidst these challenging circumstances, such a victory is all the more meaningful.

Gap finally took action to ensure workers were paid, but its delayed action caused further harm–it remains to be seen if the workers’ children who were forced to leave school because they couldn’t afford school fees will catch up, or if these ripples will just add to the waves of harm done by U.S. brands in search of a cheap t-shirt. 

Lastly, this is the second victory that Partners for Dignity and Rights has helped win in the last six months where remedy for workers was delayed by management-friendly “investigations.” Rather than facilitate workers’ access to remedy, Better Work Haiti nearly blocked it, ultimately causing a substantial delay in the delivery of justice for workers. Better Work Haiti urgently needs to reconsider its practices to ensure that it is not merely a tool for brands and factories to avoid corrective action, but that it prioritizes workers’ fundamental rights in all its future investigations.

1.  Earlier reporting documented 13 women illegally terminated. An additional pregnant worker who was affected was identified in a subsequent investigation by the Worker Rights Consortium. ↩︎
2.  In May 2026, the Haitian government announced that it would increase the minimum wage for garment workers to 1000 gourdes per day. While this 46% increase sounds significant, hyperinflation decreased workers’ purchasing power 66.94% between 2022-2025. That means that the new minumum wage is actually worth less in real value than the previous minimum wage was when it went into effect in 2022. The Haitian gourde has also been weak in trading against the dollar in this time, meaning that U.S. brands continue to profit. ↩︎
3. Better Work Haiti was established in 2009 as part of HOPE II, the U.S. trade agreement that allows duty-free access to U.S. markets for apparel from Haiti. Eligibility for this access requires compliance with certain “core labour standards” and with the labour laws of Haiti that directly relate to and are consistent with the core labour standards. Better Work is partnership between the International Labour Organization (ILO) and the International Finance Corporation (IFC), a member of the World Bank Group and has programs in 11 countries around the globe in order to, in their words, “[unite] governments, employers’ and workers’ organizations, global brands, factory owners and workers to improve working conditions in the global apparel and footwear industry and make the sector more competitive.” ↩︎