Bangladeshi Fashion Workers and a German law

While the original whitewashing was simply the painting of a surface – such as a house – with a lime-based mixture for sanitation, more recently whitewashing has come to mean the covering up of corporate scandals to make them appear better. This is why corporate public relations – evil heretics call it corporate propaganda – exists.

It gets worse. Next came greenwashing, which is the deceptive marketing of a corporation or a product. It portrays polluting corporations, or environmentally damaging – or even dangerous – products, as more environmentally friendly or sustainable than they actually are. In the world of business schools, greenwashing is smoke-screened through two ideologies: business ethics and corporate social responsibility.

Of course, greenwashing also includes carbonwashing. This occurs when corporations exaggerate or misrepresent – evil heretics call it corporate lies and deceptions – the extent of their carbon footprint reduction efforts and investments in carbon offsetting initiatives.

It becomes what it actually is: mere window dressing – or, as some might call it, putting lipstick on a pig. In any case, the idea of carbonwashing is to make corporations appear greener and more sustainable than they actually are.

But wait, there’s more. Since the recent watering down of Europe’s supply chain law, corporate PR vandals now have an even newer tool to make corporations appear good. This is where supply chain washing comes in.

This is about making corporate supply chains look better than they actually are, hiding environmental destruction and slave-labor-like working conditions down the supply chain. With supply chain washing, workers in distant factories can be mistreated and underpaid – or not paid at all, or both – while a corporation still looks good.

Since Stanley Milgram, we have known that the more distant the victims are, the more they will be tormented. Adolf Hitler never visited a single concentration camp.

The more steps down the supply chain – and the more distant a production facility is – the better for corporations. While corporations no longer run concentration camps as they did in Nazi Germany, today’s corporate profit maximization often starts in a distant factory.

All too often, these corporate profits are made on the backs of workers in distant sweatshops, and often at the cost of the natural environment. To camouflage both, supply chain washing helps corporate managers make their corporations look good.

It is no mistake that, in the supply chain, this is part and parcel of what corporations do. The recent watering down of Europe/Germany’s supply chain law allows for both: corporations can look good while still causing harm to workers and the environment in distant places.

In other words, a seamstress in Bangladesh, for example, can be beaten by her supervisor, and the fashion company can still look good at the other end – a fashion store in the Global North. The case of the beaten worker in Bangladesh puts Germany’s supply chain act to the test—if it works for corporations, not workers.

Every Saturday, a bundle of printed advertising brochures still lands in the mailboxes of millions of households in Germany. Aldi Nord invites you to a pleasure trip to Greece, Penny offers cheap sparkling wine, and Lidl offers loungewear. A woman walks through the picture under the Esmara lettering, in beige fine-knit pants and a striped fine-knit sweater. Next to it are pictures of panties and a soft bra. From Monday, you can get a whole outfit for under €30 (about $35).

7,000 kilometers further southeast, Hemalika packs a sweater into a cardboard box. It is the last step of a production chain in which threads are dyed, fabrics are woven, and parts are sewn. Before the finished textiles land on Hemalika’s workboard, other employees sew labels onto them – Esmara is written on them. Hemalika stands for millions of women in her country, Bangladesh.

All that unites them with Germany are textiles – for €9.99, €8.99, €4.99 (€5 ≈ $6). Germans consume; they produce. With Germany’s Lieferkettensorgfaltspflichtengesetz, or Supply Chain Due Diligence Act (LkSG), introduced at the beginning of 2023, Germans and Bangladeshi workers have even more in common: a small piece of German law.

According to that law, the original idea was that it should no longer matter what happens on the other side of the world where production is carried out for German profits. In reality, consumers think these workers are safe and that they are buying fairly produced clothes at low prices. In reality, local seamstresses often do not even know their rights.

Although the law has been in force for three years – surprise, surprise – not a single case has become publicly known in which labor law violations in a supply chain have actually had noticeable consequences for a German company. In other words, the window dressing works. Corporations are seen as good companies while they mistreat workers – without any consequences.

Welcome to modern capitalism with an Orwellian twist. In George Orwell’s 1984, the Ministry of Love functions as the epicenter of surveillance, torture, and brainwashing. Under Germany’s Supply Chain Due Diligence Act, workers in Bangladesh can be beaten and nothing happens – except that these corporations can now say, “we comply with the LkSG,” and German consumers are led to believe they are buying from a decent shop.

This is unlikely to change. In an industrial area in Gazipur, near Dhaka, Hemalika stands at her workboard on a Saturday in August 2025 when her department head approaches her. He does not like her work, so he strikes her. It is noon in one of the largest industrial areas of Bangladesh. Textile factories line the streets, interspersed with small workshops and residential buildings. Hemalika’s workplace is here—the factory of Fiat Fashion Ltd.

The air is heavy, hot, polluted, dirty, and dusty. Workers run home quickly during their lunch break. The meeting with Hemalika takes place in her brother’s apartment. The room in which she waits is not even 10 square meters; one bed takes up almost the entire space. She sits on a chair next to it.

Hemalika speaks quietly and keeps looking at the floor, or at her brother in search of support. The 27-year-old has been working in the finishing department of Fiat Fashion for two years. “Most of the products I work on are intended for [Germany’s] Lidl client,” she says. A pink scarf – an orna – covers her head. She picks up the fabric and strokes it smooth with her fingers as she begins to describe what happened.

To verify her story, German journalists spoke with other workers at the factory, as well as with the local trade union and human rights organizations. On August 16, 2025, Hemalika was almost finished with her work. “Around 18:00, I prepared a cardboard box for Lidl with a sweater. The box was torn open,” she says.

As a result, the head of the department came to her workboard. “My boss saw this and rejected the box, so I replaced it.” That could have been the end of it. But the department head asked, “How did this happen? Why is the box torn open?”

He then began to scold her loudly. According to Hemalika’s account, the department head insulted her, calling her a whore, and beat her with the board several times. “I started crying. Everyone in the room saw that,” she says. In complaints filed with the industry organization BGMEA (Bangladesh Garment Manufacturers and Exporters Association) and the Bangladesh Ministry of Labor, it is stated that the department head beat and insulted her.

This behavior is a serious violation of labor law and of workplace standards. Hemalika says she went to a supervisor. When she told him what had happened, he said: “He’s like your brother, that’s why he beat you. Forgive him.”

When another supervisor didn’t help her either, she went back to the first supervisor and insisted on a clarification. Then the head of the department took her hand and asked for forgiveness. “I was scared and I just said that he should never do something like that again, please,” she says.

When Hemalika went home that evening, she constantly rewound what had happened in her head. Since then, she keeps retelling herself what her department head did to her and what the supervisor said afterwards: forgive him. How your department head asked you for forgiveness. But she cannot forgive him.

These workplaces create dependencies. More than 84% of Bangladesh’s export earnings come from the textile and clothing industry. Bangladesh is dependent on it – on the textile industry. The country is dependent on Germany – the largest European sales market.

In the 2023/24 financial year, Bangladesh exported goods worth over €4 bn ($6.6 bn) – the majority of them textiles. Around 4.5 million people work in the textile industry; most of them are women like Hemalika. Her workplace was never considered truly safe.

The place where German journalists first meet Hemalika is not far from the Memorial of the Rana Plaza collapse. The memorial commemorates the “disaster” – evil heretics would say profit maximization leading to the death of workers – in April 2013. On that day, the Rana Plaza factory building “collapsed” – all by itself! In reality, the company saved money on safety measures. What followed was almost predictable. It killed more than 1,130 workers and injured more than 2,500.

Not by chance, workers in that factory building produced for German companies. Not to worry. Only ten years later were the responsibilities of German companies legally stipulated by the LkSG (2023). Since 2023, corporations have had to check the environmental impact, corporate governance, and compliance with human rights of their suppliers. Just checking, as it is said.

If a company learns of a violation of human rights, it must immediately conduct a risk analysis, solve the problem, and introduce preventive measures. Who is going to tell? If it does not, Germany’s Federal Office of Economics and Export Control (BAFA) can be contacted.

In fact, not a lot has changed since Rana Plaza. Still – and only after years of protests – the minimum wage was increased from 8,000 to 12,500 taka per month in 2023, the equivalent of a meager €90 or $149. Still, today, factory buildings are considered safer.

Yet there are NGO reports on violence in the workplace. In other words, stable buildings alone do not create a safe workplace. Reports from various human rights organizations state that working conditions are hardly any better; some even report that they have worsened due to inflation and the pandemic.

For example, sexual violence and harassment are widespread in factories in the clothing industry. According to a study by the non-governmental organization ActionAid, around 80% of Bangladeshi workers have either experienced or observed assaults at work.

The problem is that most workers hardly know their rights. So it was for Hemalika. Hemalika is “lucky” – yet, unions do not appear suddenly out of luck. Workers fought and organized a union. Her factory has its own union, the Fiat Fashion Workers Union. It works under the umbrella of the largest union for textile workers in the country: the National Garment Workers Federation (NGWF).

The next day, Hemalika talked to members of the union, told them everything, and demanded justice. She was not aware of how much she would trigger with this. Three days later, a message from Fiat Fashion (2025) was read at the factory building stating that processes at the factory had been significantly disrupted.

In the notice, management declared an indefinite factory closure. Shortly afterwards, there was a new notice. In it, management targeted 57 workers who, according to factory management, were involved in a previous protest to support Hemalika. Six of them were elected union representatives. Even when the factory reopened under pressure from the trade union, these six were forbidden to enter the building.

German journalists met twelve of the affected workers and spoke with them. They had gone to the supervisor together and demanded consequences for the head of the department. There was no solution, but also no further dispute. The meeting took place in February 2026 in Dhaka, at the headquarters of the NGWF.

Many workers were threatened by management’s thugs and even had to leave their homes for security reasons. They report threats from local brutes as well as anonymous calls telling them to stop protesting against Fiat Fashion. In addition, the landlords of three employees – including union members – demanded that they leave their apartments for no apparent reason.

When journalists confronted Fiat Fashion with these allegations, they received no response. According to a former foreman, there had already been a similar case with the same department head in the past – macho management with a touch of despotism, as it is commonly known.

These were heated times in Bangladesh. Shortly after the union meeting, parliamentary elections took place – the first after the overthrow of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina in August 2024. Hasina, who had increasingly ruled the country autocratically in recent years, was forced to resign as a result of mass protests – carried mainly by the younger generation.

In the vacuum between the uprising and the election, the approximately 170 million people in the country dreamed of a new beginning, of more justice. A lot has changed, and yet working conditions in the textile industry remain largely the same – now neatly camouflaged by Germany’s infamous Supply Chain Due Diligence Act (LkSG), at least in Germany.

Trade unions, on the other hand, helped to some extent. Meanwhile, state repression of trade unions remains high. Eighty-three percent of factories in the country do not have a trade union. Among the remaining 17%, it is assumed that many unions either no longer exist or are hardly active.

The establishment and official recognition of trade unions is made particularly difficult by Bangladesh’s state authorities. Capitalism working in conjunction with the state – as a lackey of capitalism – is not new. Anyone who gets involved in a trade union risks their job.

Dismissals, threats, corporate bullying, arrests, and blacklists – as in the case of Fiat Fashion – are not uncommon. In other words, Blake’s “dark Satanic mills” have been exported from the Global North to the Global South under the motto: out of sight, out of mind.

This is precisely why the irresponsibility of “clients” – suddenly no longer called corporations in the language of managerialism – such as Germany’s discount chain Lidl (revenue: €132 billion or $155 bn in 2024), and supportive laws, are so important. Instead of Germany’s much-praised Supply Chain Due Diligence Act, it is the protest of trade unions that – for many workers – will put pressure on international corporations and their dehumanizing supply chain rules.

As one would expect, when journalists confronted Fiat Fashion and Germany’s camouflaging industry organization BGMEA, there was – surprise, surprise – no reply.

Germany’s Supply Chain Due Diligence Act works – for corporations, corporate public relations, and to deceive the German public. Hemalika and her colleagues were putting it to the test with the help of their union. The union not only submitted complaints to Fiat Fashion, Bangladeshi authorities, and the Ministry of Labor, but also to the other end of the supply chain.

In August 2025, the president of the trade union wrote to Lidl, informing the company of serious violations of labor law at Fiat Fashion Ltd., including that Hemalika had suffered physical and verbal assaults by a department head, and that factory management had refused to even discuss the case with the union and workers.

How is this possible, given Lidl’s extensive, nice, shiny, and beautifully composed corporate social responsibility statements? unternehmen.lidl.de/verantwortung calls this:

• On the way to tomorrow – take responsibility!
• On the way to tomorrow – for fair and respectful cooperation! Appreciation, fairness, and compliance with human rights and animal welfare standards are indicators of a functioning corporation.

How beautiful corporate public relations can be. Evil heretics call it corporate propaganda. To further illuminate Lidl’s corporate social responsibility and business ethics, the union also reported on 57 dismissed workers, including union members. Isn’t being a union member a human right? And isn’t that same right covered by Germany’s constitution—and by Lidl’s own CSR statements on “compliance with human rights”?

At the lower end of Lidl’s supply chain, these things no longer matter. Even better, now they can be camouflaged by Germany’s Supply Chain Due Diligence Act. Despite corporate propaganda and state support, unions demanded immediate action regarding the dismissed workers, a safe and respectful workplace – especially for women – and dialogue with the union.

Six days later, unions reported that the factory had reopened, but still asked “emphatically” for a response. At the beginning of September 2025, Lidl’s supply chain compliance department replied that they were investigating the case and requested more information, which was sent the next day.

In October 2025, the trade union informed Lidl that factory management was putting pressure on workers, that death threats had been made, and that workers had fled their homes in fear. Perhaps this is what Lidl’s corporate social responsibility calls “taking responsibility” and “compliance with human rights.”

Meanwhile, Lidl informed the union that factory management denied the allegations. The case was being investigated further – the codeword for “shelved.”

Persistent journalists continued to question Lidl. The company’s “corporate communications” – meaning Lidl framed this as a communications issue – pointed to its Code of Conduct, stating that violations of freedom of association and of a fair and non-discriminatory working environment are incompatible with company values.

It recalls a scene from Casablanca, where a policeman pretends to be shocked by illegal gambling, only to collect his winnings moments later.

Lidl stated it would investigate possible violations but added that it could not comment on specific facts because investigations were ongoing.

Meanwhile, the Supply Chain Due Diligence Act was significantly watered down in Germany and Europe, rendering it an instrument of “supply chain washing.” After “business associations”– codeword for: corporate lobbying – complained loudly and persistently, the law was softened, turning it from a weak tool into mere window dressing.

At the end of 2025, the European Parliament approved a weakening of European supply chain rules. Under the new regulation, companies such as Aldi and Adidas dropped out. If Germany follows suit under a pro-business government (Merz), this trend is likely to continue.

At the end of March 2026, the Bangladeshi Sugar Festival – the most important holiday of the year – took place. Hemalika spent it with her husband and her young child. Lidl’s Fiat Fashion factory is currently closed. Before the festival, work pressure had been extremely high. This is the only time of year she can spend with her family – otherwise, the pressure of corporate capitalism is relentless.

Many laid-off workers had hoped to get their jobs back before the festival. But after seven months without a fixed salary, life has become even more uncertain. Nevertheless, they do not give up. They continue to fight company for their jobs and for their rights.

Meanwhile, Germany’s and Europe’s supply chain laws have mutated into instruments of corporate public relations – ready-made tools for “supply chain washing,” allowing corporations to present exploitative systems as ethical ones. George Orwell remains right on the mark.

Thomas Klikauer was born half-way between Castle Frankenstein, the place where Johannes Gutenberg invented the printing press, and Karl Benz’s garage where the first motor-car was developed. Educated at the TU Darmstadt, Bremen University, Boston University, and Warwick University, Thomas Klikauer teaches MBA students and supervises PhDs at the Sydney Graduate School of Management (SGSM) at Western Sydney University, Australia. Among his 1,200 publications are 17 books. He writes for ZNet on trade unions, for Cross Border Talks on Neo-Nazism and for Countercurrents on everything else that is relevant for our collective survival. His homepage is: klikauer.wordpress.com. He lives in Sydney’s beachside suburb of Coogee.