Companies Who Mistreat Employees

by Lucy & Mila
Published May 2, 2025

Did you know that some companies treat their workers badly? Well if you didn’t know, now you do. Over the years, many companies have been treating their workers unfairly, harmfully, and that isn't right! There are many ways we could help fix this. Some ways these companies treat their workers badly are by doing things like child labor and not paying their workers a living wage. In this article, we will give information on what brands are doing these things and how we could help solve these problems. 

One company that reportedly treats their workers badly is Crumbl Cookie. Crumbl Cookie hires workers that are 14, 15, and 16. The legal age to work as a crew member is 16, and to operate the mixers and ovens, you will have to be 18.  The US Department of Labor  says that they found 11 Crumbl Cookies’ franchises violated child labor regulations in 6 states, which affected 46 minor-aged workers. 

Another example of a company that does not treat their workers well is Nike. Clean Clothes Campaign said “These investors are joining the chorus of rights organisations, unions, consumers, and students who have urged Nike to end its cruel and unnecessary four-year stand off with thousands of vulnerable unpaid workers. Investors claim that these millions in wages still legally owed to workers in Nike’ supply chain pose a sizable risk.” Last year, students protested at the University of Michigan's American Football game against University of Texas. Nike has left many workers unpaid leaving workers without money for necessities like bills, groceries, and clothes. So if the workers aren't paid it could affect them in many different harmful ways, like damaging their health and living situation.

Lastly, Shein doesn't treat their workers well. Just like Crumbl Cookie, Shein hires minors as their workers. According to BBC, Shein revealed child labor cases at suppliers. Shein also takes and rips off designs from other brands, and claims them as their own, without giving any credit. This also affects many brands because they work hard to create their own design, and then they find out that some brands copy them, one of those brands might be Shien. Because of this, you should not order from Shein. They don't have good quality, and if you bought from them you would practically be supporting child labour. 

 We can help with these situations by pointing it out and messaging the brand. For example, we can message Shein headquarters and tell them not to copy other brands, or spread the word that Shein did not make the design. Another way we could help fix this is to tell the creator of the design, and the designer could get a patent on the design so no more brands could copy their design. We could also not buy from them, so they stop selling and go out of business, then the children wouldn't be in labour, and then that problem would be resolved.

 A way we could help the workers in Nike is that the customers/us could start a protest and message and email Nike, and bring up the awareness that Nike is not paying their workers, and also like Shein, we could not buy from them. Eventually Nike would have to say something about the problem, and from all of the protesting they would start paying their workers.

 We can help Crumbl Cookie’s workers by protesting too and trying to get them to make an age limit of 18 for workers to be able to get hired. If Crumbl Cookie does not agree with this we could get the workers to quit, and not getting cookies from there, so they would have to hire older workers, or else they would not be in business.

These are many ways you could help the employees, but these are just the main ways. And maybe you as a leader could come up with some more. As a community we can all be leaders and try to make working in these stores a better experience for all. Try to be one of these leaders, and step up for what is right!