The German brand allegedly pays workers cheaply to produce their leather bags, according to a new, damning report

The luxury business continues to be battered by news about bad labour practices, particularly in Italy. The latest to be exposed for selling astronomically priced bags made by migrant workers with low pay and with even worse employment terms is Montblanc. In new reporting by current affairs program East 101 for the Qatar-based Al Jazeera, shared five days ago, the famous pen and watch brand’s luxury leather bags are purportedly sewed up in Tuscany by migrant Chinese working in conditions that do not meet the requirements of Italian industrial law. But what, perhaps, is shocking (or no longer, after the Dior exposé by Reuters in June) in the story titled ‘Italy’s Designer Sweatshops’ is the production cost of one of the bags. A tote that looked like a business style for men was made for €56 (or about S$79). A simple bag in-store described as a “soft tote” retails here for S$2,515.

East 101 went undercover in the city of Prato, into one of the sub-subcontractors’ production facility to see how they operate. There were only two male workers that day, and they were making the bags—identified as Montblanc—without protective gear, one of them polishing the edges of a bag, and breathing in leather dust that, as stated in the report, the World Health Organisation has declared to be carcinogenic. But the men went on, seemingly unconcerned, even handling equipment that one of them said was heated to “400 degrees (presumably in Celcius)”. The proprietor of the factory, a Zhuan Meidan who goes by Sophia, revealed that she did not hire Bangladeshi or Italian workers. She informed that Chinese workers are more obedient and willing to work 11 or 12 hours at a stretch. She did not say how she recruited her compatriots or if they were documented.

…one of them polishing the edges of a bag, and breathing in leather dust that, as stated in the report, the World Health Organisation has declared to be carcinogenic

In Italy, a factory staffer working 40 hours a week is the standard, as stipulated by the law, or 8 hours a day, five days a week. And the working week must not go beyond 48 hours in total. Ms Zhuan showed the East 101 reporters the contract that her workers agreed to. On the document, it showed that a factory staffer clocked 4 hours a day, five days a week. She explained in Mandarin that “in actual fact, he does not only work for four hours. He and I have agreed prior that we can have a private arrangement and I can pay him separately. If it were to be a proper contract, I’ll have to pay a lot more for insurance.” She added, “不划算的 (bu hua suan de—It’s not worth it).” However, she did not say what she needed to insure against.

When asked, Ms Zhuan was not able to produce a contract with Montblanc. She claimed: “没什么合约 (mei shenme heyue—there’s no contract).” It was a verbal agreement with the subcontractor or what she called “聊天记录 (liaotian jilu—a chat record)”. Although she willingly revealed how much she was paid to produce the bag, with less than half going to the remuneration of her workers, she did not explain how, given that she had only two of them, she could meet the Montblanc orders, even if both worked the 12-hour shift that she was willing to pay them for. When asked if Montblanc was aware of the arrangement, she merely said that she did not deal with the brand owner directly. There exist an Italian third party, she said, that Montblanc entrusted orders to, and it farmed out the orders. It is hard to imagine that the Richemont-owned company was not aware of the numerous prongs of their supply chain.

Montblanc’s holiday window at Takashimaya. In the foreground, a bag that looks similar to what appeared in the East 101 report

In another part of the East 101 report, protests were shown in front of a Montblanc store and at one of the factories, Z Production, supposedly involved in the Hamburg-based brand’s bag manufacture, with the participants shouting, “Made in Italy, shame in Italy.” The independent Sudd Cobas workers’ union, operating in Prato, was “fighting the brand for many months,” one of the organisation’s leaders said. They accused Montblanc of being “complicit” in labour exploitation. Sudd Cobas appeared to represent many South Asians (including Pakistanis), rather than Chinese workers. They helped their members—those who had previously produced Montblanc products and then made redundant when the production moved to another factory—to get back unpaid allowances. In September, they even went all the way by car to Geneva, the base city of Richemont, Montblanc’s parent company, to protest against unfair and unethical worker treatment.

That did not work out for the group. Their first attempt in front of the gates of Richemont’s headquarters in a verdant Geneva suburb was met with confrontation with the local police. The workers then took their protest to outside the Montblanc store in the city centre. And people heard their grievances. By 26 October, about a month after they left Prato, their protest gained momentum, and hundreds of other protestors took to expressing their support for the former makers of Montblanc products at 11 of the brand’s stores across Europe. The company, founded in 1906 as a maker of luxury writing instruments, did not respond to calls by Sudd Cobas to meet for negotiations, nor to East 101’s requests for interview or comment.

The show’s reporting also earlier uncovered, in a different factory, a “hidden” facility—space leased to a Chinese-owned business that produced only for the landlord, whose clients included Dior, Jil Sander, and Marni. As with the first factory, then owned by Zhuan Median, the workers—more this time, including women—used almost no protective gear. One of the bags that was being made during the East 101 visit was a Dior backpack. The factory owner was paid €84 (or about S$122) apiece for the production of the bag that on average retails here for S$4,600. About half of the cost go to the subcontracted workers, who clocked 12-hour shifts, working from 8am to 8pm. As more news sites conduct their own investigations into the true nature of luxury bag manufacture in Italy and the cost, the less appealing many more of these bag are likely to become. Lost appetites are not going to be aroused any time soon.

Photos: AB Tan