I. Gildan(’s lack of) CSR activity
As of 2003, Gildan was a leader in the North American T-shirt industry, having over 28%
of market share, therefore its case should be an important lesson for those involved in CSR
issues.
From 1998 till 2005 Gildan took several actions from widely understood CSR area. I’ll try
to elaborate on the most important ones of them below, providing additional comments.
the company set up its own code of conduct, At the beginning of international expansion,
rejecting the SA8000 standards. This policy was caused simply by Gildan’s lack of good
will and any serious interest in implementation of CSR strategies (but this has not been
found out before 2 or 3 years later).
For almost 4 years Gildan has been dismissing all allegations regarding company’s
misbehaviour in relation to pregnancy tests, too high production quotas, poor air quality in
the workshops and wrongful dismissals (especially among unionized employees). This
policy led to several media scandals (i.e. in January 2002 CBC broadcasted a documentary
about labour law abuses in Gildan’s El Progreso factory).
Meanwhile, Gildan applied for WRAP certificate for its Honduras factories. This action
might have been called CSR-driven, however according to many NGO’s, labour unions,
etc., this certificate is worthless, the company needed it only because Wal-Mart and other
key customers have made it mandatory for large suppliers. During WRAP certification
process, a meeting between MSN and Gildan representatives took place, MSN tried to
persuade Gildan to conduct an independent investigation but the company rejected this
proposal.
In February 2003 Gildan received another pseudo-CSR award form CIDA. CIDA was
officially criticized by ETAG for prizing a company with tarnished reputation, what is
more ETAG questioned value of WRAP certification and recommended that Gildan should
apply for certificates based on ILO conventions. In response Gildan’s representatives said
that the company is affiliated with BVQI and wants to obtain accreditation form the FLA
(which finally has been obtained in October 2003), during that time Gildan broke off all
communication with MSN.
The next (un)socially responsible action took by Gildan was rejection of all accusations
put into a report prepared by MSN and EMIH. Besides that, the company threatened MSN
that it would take legal actions if the organization continued to spread the report and filed a
complaint to NDRC.
On December 23rd 2003 MSN, CLC and FITH filed a formal complaint with FLA, this
seemed to be – in connection with QFL’s tender offer for shares – the turning point in
