Secrets of The High Street

January 2008

New evidence from the Garment and Textile Workers’ Union in India reveals that employees producing clothes for Matalan, H & M and MK One are denied a living wage, £54 a month – enough to meet their bills for housing, food and healthcare. They receive only £38 a month.

December 2007

Workers are still being paid less than half a living wage producing clothes for leading UK retailers Primark, Tesco and Asda in Bangladesh. The £4.6 million in salary and bonuses for Tesco’s chief executive Sir Terry Leahy could pay the annual wages of more than 25,000 Bangladeshi garment employees who supply its stores, based on average wages of about £15 a month.

October 2007

The Observer finds unpaid Indian children as young as 10 working 16 hours a day amid filthy conditions, making clothes for sale in Gap stores as Christmas gifts.

September 2007

Culprits are listed in Let’s Clean Up Fashion 2007 Update  published by War on Want and Labour Behind the Label. They found Bhs, Diesel, House of Fraser, Kookai, Matalan, MK One, Moss Bros, Mothercare, Peacocks/Bon Marche, River Island, Rohan Designs and Ted Baker refuse to make reasonable information available on the living wage or other labour rights issues of their workers and “continue not to respond to our enquiries about their policies and practice.”

The Guardian reports allegations that Indian workers making clothes for British retailers Primark and Mothercare are so poor – paid as little as 13p an hour – that they sometimes have to rely on government food parcels.

August 2007

The Sunday Times finds workers in Mauritius paid less than £4 a day to make clothes for the latest range designed by supermodel Kate Moss for sale by the UK retailer Topshop.