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Conference & Comedy: Stand up for Myanmar

A big day coming up in April as we host an afternoon of discussion with academics and trade union leaders from Myanmar and the UK, as well as special guest, Jeremy Corbyn.
All this followed by an evening of comedy to raise funds for the Burmese trade unions struggle against the military dictatorship with legendary comedian, Mark Thomas.

Boohoo Panorama

Our response to BBC Panorama’s Boohoo revelations

Last night the BBC aired an episode of Panorama involving undercover reporting from inside fast fashion giant and notorious corporate exploiter, Boohoo. The results were even worse than we expected.

The report revisited the company to investigate the changes that it had promised to implement in 2020 following the horrific revelations, made by our friends at Labour Behind the Label, of sweatshop conditions in the UK, in Leicester’s garment sector that Boohoo were responsible for. The bad news is things have not improved, but the extent to which they have not improved was shocking.

 

The undercover reporting revealed the kinds of buyer practices that anti-sweatshop activists have been exposing for decades. The practice of demanding discounts from suppliers is a key element of the continuation of sweatshop conditions. Renegotiating prices after the goods have been made (in some cases after they have shipped!) causes losses for factory owners that are passed on to workers in the form of unpaid wages. Workers who are already on the breadline due to the incredibly low wages the industry maintains, are forced into dire poverty by the loss of their earned wages at the end of the month, when brands like Boohoo demand these discounts.

 

While some brands have taken steps to end these kinds of punitive practices, they are far too common in the industry, and were exposed across the board during the pandemic when brands refused to pay for their orders during lockdowns. This period exposed the harsh reality that it is the brands that have the economic power, and it is the workers making the clothes that suffer the consequences.

 

However, one of the more startling revelations in the Panorama episode was the flagrant use of subcontracting in the UK. Panorama’s undercover filming of the conditions at MM Leicester, one of the subcontracted factories producing for Boohoo, showed managers forcing workers to work overtime, doing shifts as long as 13 hours according to worker testimony, all under pressure from Boohoo HQ. While this was bad enough, seeing the labels on the boxes read Thurmaston Lane, Boohoo’s much trumpeted state of the art factory, was evidence of one of the most egregious practices brands take in the industry. It is common practice for brands to highlight their best factories in their Corporate Social Responsibility reports, and post-2020, Boohoo made a big show of the model factory it was building in Leicester, one that they claimed would be a gamechanger for them and the UK garment industry. What is often hidden behind these model factories are the subcontracted factories doing a huge amount of the production in conditions that are unacceptable and even illegal. It is the practice of subcontracting that allows things like child labour to continue in countries like Bangladesh, as we saw with our own eyes in our 2020 trip. Boohoo’s labelling of goods produced at MM Leicester as being a product of Thurmaston Lane appears to be a classic example of this deceitful practice and is bringing back the worst excesses of sweatshop labour to the UK.  

 

While overall the Panorama documentary was an excellent piece of investigative journalism, that included voices of workers as well as campaigners and industry experts, one criticism we have to make is a lack of involvement of trade unions. There has been a huge amount of work done by trade unions in the UK to bring change to the industry and their voice needs to be heard every time we talk about genuine change in the garment industry. That goes for investigations overseas as well. It is only through organising and collective bargaining that lasting change can be made. The BBC has exposed the broken promises of Boohoo to be more ethical, but without trade union representation and the collective power of the workers that that brings, brands like Boohoo that hold the economic power will be free to go on making and breaking promises and the workers will continue to suffer.

 

Watch the episode on BBC iPlayer

Bangladesh protest for living wage

Garment Workers in Bangladesh Deserve a Living Wage

On 1st November the Minimum Wage Board in Bangladesh will make its decision on the new minimum wage rate for garment workers. Trade unions and labour organisations are calling for an increase to 23,000 taka per month, which is roughly £172. Bangladeshi garment workers deserve a living wage, now is the time to support them.