Knights Apparel sets example in fair wage standards

22 Jul '10

2 min read

Knights Apparel, a US based clothing brand has set an example in Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) in its manufacturing facility in the Dominican Republic, for other big time clothing retailers and its peers to follow.

Compared to the average wage of US $147 per month earned by a clothing industry worker in Dominican Republic, a worker is paid around three times that amount or about $500 per month in a factory operated by Knights Apparel.

A worker working at the Knights Apparel plant earns around $2.83 per hour, while his/her contemporaries in Bangladesh are paid an woefully inadequate 15 cents per hour, while in China it is a bit higher at 85 cents and hour, the same as received by workers in other plants in Dominican Republic.

Knights Apparel is the top supplier of logo bearing clothing, which includes T-shirts and track suits to colleges and universities in the US. Pressure on college-logo clothing providers to treat its workers fairly from Worker Rights Consortium, which is a group of 186 universities, has induced the company to pay fair wages.

However, the moot question that experts raise is that after Knights Apparels pays its workers such high salaries, will it still be able to stay competitive, after all their prices could be near about in the range quoted by global sportswear brands like Nike and Adidas.

Fibre2fashion News Desk - India