Some of the biggest fashion brands in the high street do not do enough to ensure the overseas workers who make their clothes are lifted out of poverty, a report published on Friday claims.
The study, by the UK-based charity War on Want and the anti- sweatshop coalition Labor Behind the Label, has identified Matalan and Mothercare, two companies featured in a local London newspaper investigation into the pay and conditions of workers in Bangalore, India, as among the "worst offenders."
It claims that they are failing to accept the need for overseas garment workers to be paid a "living wage" by their suppliers, that they have no information available on pay levels, and that they failed to respond to questions put to them by the report's authors.
The report, Let's Clean Up Fashion, launched on the eve of London fashion week, criticized retailers including Marks & Spencer, Tesco and H&M, for what it claims is their "unambitious" and "disappointing" approach to improving the wages of those who make their clothes.
It also described as disappointing the response it received from Arcadia group, which owns the brands Topshop, Topman, Dorothy Perkins, Evans, Miss Selfridge and Wallis.
The report follows a Guardian investigation into allegations from workers in Bangalore who supply Matalan and Mothercare that they were paid as little as ?0.13 (US$0.26) an hour for a 48-hour week, wages so low they sometimes had to rely on government food parcels.
Similar allegations over pay and conditions were made by workers who made clothes for M&S, Primark, H&M and Gap.
At the time, Primark and Mothercare launched an investigation into the allegations and the other companies said they required their suppliers to pay the legal minimum wage or above.
The investigation followed the Guardian's earlier report in which Primark, Asda and Tesco were accused of breaching international labour standards in Bangladesh. Asda responded by launching an inquiry. Primark expressed concern and Tesco said it could not take action because the Guardian, in order to protect workers, had not provided the names of the factories concerned.
The authors of Let's Clean Up Fashion contacted 34 of the biggest fashion brands to see what they were doing to improve wages for workers in their supply chains, to compare with a similar survey last year.
But the report concludes: "Only a couple of fashion brands will admit publicly that working conditions in their supply chains are significantly below what is desirable. The vast majority continue to hoodwink the public by telling them that everything is fine and the examples cited by campaigners and the media are just glitches."
With a couple of notable exceptions, those that do admit the problems have little to show on the issues we raise. They tend to agree that something must be done on a sector-wide level, but then sit back and wait for it to happen," it added.
The report said it was most disappointed in those which were members of the Ethical Trading Initiative (ETI), a code of conduct which sets out basic rights for employees across the supply chain, but which "seem not to have grasped the gulf between what most companies do on labour rights and what needs to be done to have a serious impact on working conditions."
Bringing in a living wage for overseas suppliers is something which would currently be achievable for UK fashion firms, the report claims. Gap, New Look and Next are named as retailers with "genuine plans" to address the need for better wages for overseas workers, while it concludes that Primark, which has pledged to be active in work on the living wage, has made "a definite improvement" to its position on pay a year ago.
It points to the "stark contrast" between the large financial rewards given to some fashion firm bosses and the low wages paid to overseas workers.
Simon McRae, senior campaigns officer for War on Want, said: "This report exposes retailers' empty rhetoric on ethical treatment for workers who make their clothes but remain trapped in poverty."
Staff in Bangladesh earn 7 percent of a UK living wage -- even taking into account the cheaper cost of living. This compares with 9 percent of a UK living wage earned by the average garment worker in India, 11 percent in China and Vietnam, 14 percent in Thailand and 25 percent in Morocco.
The charity wants legislation to make UK firms enforce ethical labor standards throughout their supply chains.
On Thursday, Mothercare said it demanded that all its suppliers worldwide "comply with our ethical sourcing policy and code of conduct, which conforms fully with the Ethical Trading Initiative."
It added that its wages policy complied with the ETI and stated that "wages and benefits must meet, at a minimum, the national legal standards, local legal standards, or industry benchmark standards, whichever is higher."
The designer Jeff Banks, speaking on behalf of Matalan, said that all factories supplying Matalan had to first complete an audit ensuring that wages paid were above the minimum wage.
When asked about a living wage, he replied: "If the minimum wage does not meet the living wage of an industry, that's something for that country's government. It's beyond our adjudication."
War on Want quotes Arcadia Group as saying that it "continues to support the principle of a living wage," but that such a concept is "beyond the influence of one single brand or company."
An Arcadia spokesman added that it "will also continue to support and participate in multi-stakeholder initiatives which endeavor to find a solution to the sustainable implementation of the living wage."
M&S told the report's authors that all employees at suppliers receive "at least the minimum wage."
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