Now a week ago Sarah O'Connor in the same
FT wrote:
'Covid-19 has found its way into the neglected cracks in our economies.
In the US, Europe and Asia, poor working conditions in care homes, meat
plants and factories have helped to spread the virus. This week [3rd, July 2020], a
campaign group blamed clothing sweatshops in the English city of
Leicester for contributing to a local surge in cases.
The story of Leicester’s garment district is worth knowing, because it
reveals something important about how the British economy evolved in the
decade between the financial crisis and this pandemic. It also
demonstrates what it will take for the country to “build back better”,
as UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson promised to do this week.'
Sarah O'Connor describes how in 2018, she investigated Leicester’s clothing industry which she concludes was
'a bizarre microeconomy where £4 to £4.50 an hour was the going rate for sewing machinists in many factories (£3 for packers).' Based on tiny sweatshops that were crammed into crumbling old buildings and legally compliant factories using expensive machines were being outcompeted by illegally underpaid humans.
When she exposed this industry two years ago she likened it to be more like the 19th Century than the 21st Century.
It seems that large scale buyers of Leicester’s clothes are based online as 'fast fashion' retailers, which have done well in the pandemic owing to the proximity and speed of their UK suppliers. And
Boohoo, which sources about 40 per cent of its clothing in the UK, much of it in Leicester, prospered in lockdown by switching nimbly to producing leisurewear for the homebound, while rivals were left with shipping containers from Asia full of summer party dresses.
It seems that the big boy on the block Boohoo’s co-founder Mahmud Kamani has become a billionaire and is set for a £50m bonus if Boohoo’s share price continues to rise. And the campaign group
Labour Behind the Label has alleged that the some of company’s suppliers contributed to the spread of coronavirus; meanwhile Boohoo says it adhered to all government guidance and that its supply chain adheres to all labour laws, though it does not publish a list of its suppliers.
Sarah O'Connor reports that:
'Leicester’s sweatshops, which comprise part but not all of the city’s
garment sector, were an open secret even before my investigation began.
In fact, a senior Whitehall official first told me about them. A local
official in Leicester warned me in 2018 that, if I published my story, I
would cause mass unemployment for people with no other options. In
fact, nothing changed. After publication, I was invited to testify at a
parliamentary select committee hearing into the costs of online fast
fashion. The government rejected every one of the committee’s
recommendations.'
Ms. O'Connor writes:
'As unemployment rises in the months ahead, it will be vital to focus on jobs. But to prioritise quantity while turning a blind eye to quality would be to repeat past mistakes.'
Tellingly she points to the crucial coming dilemma:
'As well as the feared harm to public health, Leicester’s economy will suffer from a prolonged lockdown and fall further behind more prosperous parts of the UK. So much for “levelling up”. In truth, there was always an economic cost to allowing labour exploitation to flourish. The garment factories are a microcosm of Britain’s productivity problem. Job creation boomed after the financial crisis and ministers did not worry initially about their quality. They pushed up the minimum wage but left it badly under-enforced, while cutting back health and safety inspections to free up “entrepreneurialism”.'
This is all too reminiscent of other industries which have suffered like the British building trade and outsourcing.
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5 comments:
In the 19th century these places weren't known as 'dark factories', but sweatshops and those who toiled in them, were called sweated labour. What is happening in Leicester's slave factories is an old recurring story. A lot of these exploited workers will be people who were born in place like Gujurat in India and elsewhere, and they are often afraid to speak out and not in unions.
If you look at a lot of the clothing that is on sale in the UK, you can see that it's made in places like China and Bengladesh, where workers are paid a pittance for producing low cost clothing for sale in the UK markets. The Covid-19 epidemic has badly effected clothing production in places like Bangladesh and workers are losing their jobs. The clothing business is highly competitive with clothing firms trying to undercut and out compete one another to get the sales.
Although we have minimum wage legislation in the UK, there is little policing done and poor enforcement. Moreover, the penalties for breaching minimum wage legislation are so paltry, that it pays some bosses to pay below the National Minimum Wage (NMW),if they can get people to work for it and they can get away with it. We often get to hear about these scandals such as Sports Direct and Boohoo, when they are exposed by the press.
I'm no fan of the capitalist system, but I'm well aware that capitalists like Mahmud Kamani, didn't become billionaires by looking after the interests of the workers but by exploiting them. Boohoo is not a benevolent society but is there to make profit for Directors like Kamani, and the Shareholders. If you want squeeze capitalists like Kamani, and his suppliers, the workers need to be organised and united.
And if consumers think firms like Boohoo treat workers shabbily, then boycott its products, as some firms have already done because they don't what their name associated with this company and the bad publicity surrounding it. Investors like Standard Life Aberdeen are already selling shares in anticipation of a fall in the share price.
What's happening in Leicester is similar to what has been going on in the construction in the UK with the Umbrella companies, and the fake self-employment with all the ducking and dodging of rights at work.
Tory MP Andrew Bridgen told The Sun he reckons there could be 10,000 'slaves' working in Leicester.
He said: 'Covid-19 has brought into focus what's been going on.
It’s now been claimed that sources close to Home Secretary Priti Patel fear ‘cultural sensitivities’ may have been a barrier to dealing with exploitation of workers in the trade said to have been paid as little as £2 an hour to make clothes.
Since then Leicester’s mayor has dismissed the suggestions that his council has turned a blind eye to modern slavery allegations in some of the 1,000 plus garment manufacturers in the city for fear of being accused of being racist.
Sir Peter Soulsby has described the idea that the Government could ‘seize control’ of Leicester City Council to tackle 'sweatshop; conditions in the textile trade as ‘daft’.
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