What does bicycle manufacturer Giant have in common with a Chinese fishing company and a South Korean salt farm?
Aside from being in Asia, this: They are have been tagged with the only Withhold Release Orders issued this year.
A WRO, per a 2011 law, allows US Customs and Border Protection to bar goods from entering the country if they were made with forced labor.
Based partly on a report in Le Monde Diplomatique, Giant allegedly employed guest workers who paid as much as $5500 to recruiters in their home countries. Those workers, who were then signed to three-year contracts, had to pay additional fees that amounted to as much as two months’ pay.
The order bans all bikes and other goods made in Giant’s Taiwan factories, whether they are sold under Giant’s own name or those of the brands they own, or made for other companies. Interestingly, products from Giant’s factories in China and Vietnam are not affected.
Giant is appealing the order, claiming that they have been paying recruiting and other fees and providing housing for workers. In the meantime, the company has made contingency plans so supply chains can continue with “minimal disruption.
Call me a conspiracy theorist, but I couldn’t help but to notice that the US President most openly hostile to bicycles and cyclists targeted a bike company for one of the first WROs of his second administration.
