The Pay Your Workers Agreement
Adopting the binding Pay Your Workers agreement will set the industry standard for care of all our supply-chain workers. By signing, adidas commits to:
Adopting the binding Pay Your Workers agreement will set the industry standard for care of all our supply-chain workers. By signing, adidas commits to:
- A legally-binding and enforceable agreement, signed with trade unions and suppliers.
- Joint responsibility with suppliers for ensuring workers receive all outstanding wages owed to them since the start of the Covid-19 pandemic.
- Joint responsibility with suppliers for ensuring severance is paid when factories close or jobs are lost.
- Joint responsibility with suppliers for ensuring workers’ rights to collective bargaining and freedom of association are respected in supplier factories.
- Supporting the strengthening of national social protection systems for unemployment and/or severance, by paying into a fund specifically for each apparel-producing country that adidas sources from.
- The agreement will cover all workers producing textile, garment, shoe and leather goods across all tiers of adidas’ supply chain. This includes temporary workers, subcontracted workers and home-based workers.
- Multiple funds will be established and maintained. Adidas will pay into these on an ongoing basis. The funds are:
- Global Wage Assurance Account: to ensure workers are compensated fairly and in full for wage theft during Covid-19.
- Global Severance Guarantee Fund: to ensure workers receive the full severance owed to them when a factory closes or there are mass dismissals.
- Global Administration and Enforcement Account: to support governance, monitoring and the enforcement of the agreement.
- National Social Protection Accounts in each country adidas sources from: to support the formation and strengthening of national public social security systems, including unemployment insurance. The NSPA’s will be established once suppliers from those countries join the Agreement as signatories.
- adidas will contribute tens of millions of dollars per year to the funds on an ongoing annual basis. The costs equal no more than 10 cents extra per t-shirt and adidas has agreed not to pass this cost on to consumers.
- The funds will be governed by a Board composed of equal number of voting representatives from brands and suppliers on one hand and unions on the other, with a neutral chair. There will be non-voting observers, appointed by NGOs.
- adidas agrees to immediately settle all its outstanding cases of wage theft (including severance theft).
- adidas will take immediate steps to actively resolve all cases where freedom of association rights have not been respected in our supply chain.
- adidas will contribute to setting up a robust complaint mechanism that workers can use if their employer retaliates against them for union activity.
- All adidas suppliers will be required to post notices in workplaces and inform workers of their rights to payment of regular wages and severance, as well as the process for making claims. Employers will also post notices and inform workers of their basic rights, including to join a union of their choice and bargain collectively, and the process for submitting a complaint if their rights have been violated.
- If an adidas supplier fails to pay severance or respect basic labour rights, adidas agrees not to place any new orders with them and will terminate all existing business within 30 days.
- adidas agrees to work collaboratively with local trade unions and suppliers to ensure the conditions above are met.
