Police and labour officials have begun screening more than 100 former workers at a factory in Mae Sot that supplied clothes to the UK retailer Tesco to determine if they were victims of forced labour.
Authorities are gathering more information as they follow up a raid on Dec 23, led by deputy national police chief Gen Surachate Hakparn, at the VK Garment (VKG) factory in the border town in Tak province.
The raid followed an investigation by the British newspaper The Guardian, which revealed that Myanmar workers who produced F&F jeans for Tesco had reported being trapped in their work.
Workers told the newspaper that they logged 99-hour work weeks and earned as little as 120 baht a day — about one-third of the legal minimum wage — while enduring appalling conditions.
Officials from the Department of Labour Protection and Welfare conducted interviews with former VK Garment workers on Wednesday, alongside police at an immigration building in Mae Sot.
Tesco is facing a landmark lawsuit in the UK from 130 former VKG workers and a seven-year-old girl, who was raped in accommodation within the factory compound while her mother worked late making F&F clothes, The Guardian has reported.
They are suing Tesco for negligence and unjust enrichment.
The workers made F&F jeans and other clothes for the Thai branches of Tesco between 2017 and 2020. The retail chain has since been sold to the Charoen Pokphand Group which has rebranded it as Lotus’s.
Tesco, which had no role in the day-to-day running of the factory, said the allegations were “incredibly serious” and that it would have ended its relationship with the supplier “immediately” if it had identified issues of the kind at the time.
“While it is positive that some action is now being taken, we do not believe that an investigation conducted more than two years since our clients worked at the factory can be a thorough investigation,” Oliver Holland, a solicitor leading the case at the British law firm Leigh Day, told The Guardian.
The same workers have also been seeking justice in the Thai courts after being dismissed from the factory in 2020, the newspaper reported. They say they were dismissed after they confronted the factory about pay and conditions and asked to be paid the minimum wage.
The labour court ruled in September that they were only entitled to severance pay and notice pay but an appeal was lodged in December reiterating their case for the payment of unpaid overtime, holidays and illegally low wages.
Sirikul Tatiyawongpaibul, the managing director of VKG, previously said nothing illegal had been found at the factory.
“We have provided safe working conditions to all employees,” she told The Guardian. “We are regularly audited by independent auditors who are not affiliated with the company to maintain good working conditions for our employees and as required by law.”
Ms Sirikul has said the claims should be presented in court and could not be commented on, given the pending appeal in Thailand.
