Looking ahead to 2024 – New York’s proposed Fashion Act may gain traction

It has been a while since New York’s proposed Fashion Act has generated red carpet-worthy buzz. Although no longer in the press, it seems premature to place it in the overflowing bargain bin of proposed corporate social responsibility legislation. 

A draft amended version of the Fashion Sustainability and Social Accountability Act (its full name) has been circulated among industry groups and other stakeholders, but not yet formally introduced. With a growing number of co-sponsors and supporters, the Act is expected to gain more traction when an amended bill is introduced in the NY Legislature. According to sources, this may be as soon as January 2024. 

As discussed in our prior Alert describing the proposed Act (available here), if adopted, the Act would, among other things, require many “fashion sellers” to map portions of their supply chains, substantially enhance their environmental and supply chain disclosures, establish a quantitative baseline and reduction targets for Scope 1, 2 and 3 greenhouse gas emissions and obtain third-party assurance of selected reported information. 

These core provisions are expected to largely remain intact in an amended bill, although the bill has continued to evolve. A notable addition in the draft that is circulating is that tier one suppliers’ employees, or their representative labor organization, would be able to sue fashion sellers if they do not receive wages and other monetary benefits due to them.

As proposed, “wages” would be inclusive of all monies owed, including wages, overtime, paid leave, incentives, bonuses and severance. “Employees” would include all workers, whether full-time or part-time, permanent or fixed-term, directly contracted or hired indirectly through an agency or other intermediary. 

Beyond New York, there is speculation that similar legislation may be introduced in other states.

We will continue to closely watch this space in 2024.

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