Poor working conditions persist in Leicester garment factories, finds survey
More than half of the Leicester garment workers involved in a new study say they are paid below the minimum wage and receive no holiday pay, almost two years on from revelations about poor standards in the city’s factories.
The study was commissioned by a new body, the Garment and Textile Workers Trust, which is funded by online fashion retailer Boohoo, as part of efforts to clean up its act after revelations about poor practice in the group’s Leicester supply chain.
The 116 workers who filled in a questionnaire – carried out for the University of Nottingham’s Rights Lab and De Montfort University between November last year and this March – revealed they continued to suffer poor treatment. Complaints included workers not being allowed to take breaks, lack of sick pay and being pressured to work long shifts.
Almost half (49%) of those involved in the study received no sick pay, 56% had been paid below the minimum wage, 55% did not receive holiday pay and a third had no contract and did not receive a payslip.
Workers said they were nervous to speak out for fear of reprisals, with more than half fearing they would lose their job and 8% saying they were not working legally, either because they were claiming benefits or due to their immigration status. About 4% said they did not have the right to work in the UK.
The report says that tolerance to “malpractice and criminality” has partly been prompted by a perception of “ineffective or nonexistent law enforcement” in response to the problem in Leicester and “no meaningful changes resulting from previous interventions”.
It concludes: “Although some problems may take a generation to resolve, important progress can be made in the short and medium term through expanding initiatives that
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