Workers are still paid only 5p an hour for 80-hour weeks producing clothes for leading UK retailers Primark, Tesco and Asda in Bangladesh, says a charity. This is despite the publication a year ago of a report which exposed their 'sweatshops'.
The news comes as activists from Britain’s largest student campaign group stage demonstrations in at least 14 UK cities against Topshop which campaigners say is exploiting fashion industry workers.
Simon McRae, senior campaigns officer at War On Want - the charity which produced the report - said: “It is a scandal that Primark, Tesco and Asda have failed to tackle the poor wages and conditions of Bangladeshis making their clothes. Now the UK government must step in and tackle this exploitation once and for all.”
Khorshed Alam, a researcher who interviewed employees for the Fashion Victims report, said: “I have kept in touch with workers from the Bangladeshi factories. Their pay and conditions have not improved.”
Another War on Want report, Let’s Clean Up Fashion - published with the campaign group Labour Behind the Label – calculated the £1.2 billion dividend for Sir Philip Green, who owns UK retailer Topshop, was enough to double the salaries of Cambodia’s whole garment workforce for eight years.
War on Want is urging Christmas shoppers to join its drive for the British government to introduce regulation that would ensure a living wage and decent conditions for workers supplying goods or services to UK companies.
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