MIGRANT workers at Malaysian glove maker Brightway Holdings have filed a lawsuit in the United States against Kimberly-Clark Corp and Ansell Ltd, accusing them of “knowingly profiting” from the alleged use of forced labour at the supplier.
This is according to a complaint seen by Reuters and in the suit filed late on Tuesday (Aug 9) in the United States, 13 former workers claimed damages from US personal care company Kimberly-Clark and Australian personal protective equipment supplier Ansell.
The complaint said the workers paid high recruitment fees to middlemen, worked long hours with few or no rest days and had their passports taken by the company.
It also said public reports on Brightway and other Malaysian glove companies – along with violations found by labour audits – were evidence of the two companies’ knowledge of the alleged abuses.
While Kimberly-Clark did not immediately respond to a request for comment outside of regular US business hours, Ansell and Brightway said they did not have an immediate comment.
“These companies cannot deny that they had knowledge of forced labour at Brightway,” said Terrence Collingsworth, a lawyer from International Rights Advocates representing the workers.
Collingsworth said that before filing the lawsuit, he had proposed mediation with Kimberly-Clark and Ansell to obtain compensation for the workers, but both companies declined.
The US banned Brightway products from entering the country in December 2021 over suspected forced labour practices, saying it had found 10 of 11 International Labour Organisation (ILO) indicators of forced labour.
Allegations of misconduct at Brightway had been public for at least a year before that.
In December 2020, Malaysian officials found Brightway workers living in shipping containers, and a minister likened the squalid conditions as “modern slavery” after a raid.
Reuters reported in May 2021 that labour audits of Brightway had detailed 61 violations of global ethical standards and 50 violations of Malaysian labour laws, even though the auditors concluded that they did not find forced labour.
Ansell told Reuters at the time that the audits, when it inspected them, had “revealed several non-compliances with labour standards”.
Both companies then said Brightway had fixed some of these problems since the government raid in December.
Buyers such as Kimberly-Clark and Ansell use labour audits to monitor their supply chain. – Aug 10, 2022
