SAE-A Trading workers ordered to wear company brand clothes only

SAE-A Trading CEO James Ha / Courtesy of SAE-A Trading

By Kim Jae-heun

The head of a major apparel maker has been in the hot seat for sending emails to employees urging them to wear only company brand clothes when they come to work.

James Ha, president and CEO of SAE-A Trading, wrote to company workers that he yelled at some employees recently for not wearing company products, and even for drinking coffee not coming from the company brand cafe.

“On the first day of the New Year, I met one of our staff wearing clothes of another brand in an elevator,” he wrote in the email. I also saw a number of SAE-A employees who ordered coffee at a company brand cafe wearing other brands' clothes. I even saw some workers with other brand coffee in an elevator. All these are unacceptable regardless of the reason.”

Ha said all SAE-A employees are part of a big family, adding they should treat company products as their own family. “Wearing clothes made by other firms is like working with employees of other companies,” he said.

Most employees said the CEO went too far, saying the company can only encourage its employees to use its own products and that forcing them to do so is inappropriate.

“It is embarrassing to force such a rule. We are no longer living in a world where people are forced to use their company's products only,” one SAE-A employee said on condition of anonymity.

But SAE-A Trading defended the CEO's remarks, saying its human resources team also sends out similar emails, telling workers to purchase company products.

A SAE-A official said the CEO wanted to stress that all employees should exercise their loyalty toward the organization they work for by actively consuming company goods.

“We must respect our company's fashion brands by patronizing their products. It is for our future and this practice should be taken for granted as part of the corporate culture,” the HR team said in the email.

SAE-A currently operates the fashion company “IN THE F,” which sells apparels of brands like JOINUS, COMPAGNA, TRUGEN and TATE.

The group was founded in 1986 as an original equipment and original design manufacturer. It has since become a top clothing maker producing more than 700 million knitwear products and jackets annually and selling them to U.S. and European retailers.