A notice published today in the US Federal Register notified the public that CBP, with the approval of the Secretary of Homeland Security, has determined that “certain disposable gloves have been mined, produced, or manufactured in Malaysia by Top Glove Corporation Bhd with the use of convict, forced or indentured labor, and are being, or are likely to be, imported into the United States.”
It said it can now seize and forfeit all the gloves which have entered the US or those that may enter in the future.
In July, the CBP issued an import order restriction on two subsidiaries of Top Glove, the world’s largest medical glove maker, after stating that it had reasonable, but not conclusive information, to indicate that it produced goods with forced labour.
Under the latest move, products from all subsidiaries have been banned.
Top Glove has 60 companies within its group and exports to more than 195 countries.
The glove maker previously said it was working with CBP to remove the detention order on its subsidiaries, Top Glove Sdn Bhd and TG Medical Sdn Bhd, following the allegations of forced labour.
Commenting on today’s announcement, the company said its US counsels are liaising with representatives from the CBP to obtain more information on the matter.
In a statement to FMT, Top Glove said that Impactt, an independent consultant it hired to monitor its ongoing implementation of its “corrective action plans” and other remedial steps, found no evidence of “systemic forced labour” as of January.
While forced labour indicators such as restriction of movement, excessive overtime and withholding of wages were no longer present as of January, Impactt said that “further progress” had been made with regard to other indicators such as retention of identity documents, abusive working and living conditions, deception, debt bondage, physical and sexual violence and intimidation.
Meanwhile, independent migrant worker rights specialist Andy Hall said that Top Glove’s investors need to be held accountable for today’s announcement, along with the company’s owners “who have profited most handsomely” from the failure to combat forced labour.
Top Glove notched more record profits in its latest quarterly earnings released earlier this month, with profits reaching RM2.87 billion in the second quarter (Q2) from December to February, up from RM2.4 billion in Q1.
Continued demand for gloves globally has boosted the corporation’s sales, and their Q2 profit this year was nearly 25 times more than the RM115.7 million it recorded in the same period a year ago. It has also seen record earnings for three consecutive quarters, posting revenue of RM5.37 billion in Q2, up from RM4.8 billion in Q1 and 336% from a year ago.
“(Forced labour) taints the tens of billions of gloves produced and exported around the world by this company,” said Hall.
“Today’s decision by CBP should also be a wake up call to the rest of Malaysia’s exploitative rubber gloves industry, other foreign labour intensive export industries in Malaysia and to the Malaysian government and buyers of goods from Malaysia that much more needs to be done to combat the systemic forced labour of foreign workers that remains endemic in factories across the country.”
Today’s notice is also expected to affect Top Glove’s plan to list on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange in May or June this year, which it said would raise up to RM7.7 billion from new share issuance.
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