The Fashion Industry’s Dirty Secret

 

It has been discovered as a result of the Dispatches: Fashion’s Dirty Secret that British factories producing clothing for High Street retailers are not so much running state of the art manufacturing and production units, but undoubtedly holding a hideous resemblance to illegal sweatshops seen in third world countries.

 

The illegal trading circumstances constituting the British manufacturing units as “sweatshops” are the conditions in which the staff are made to work in, including pay as little as £2.50 per hour; that is less than half the minimum wage currently at £5.93. In some cases, manufacturers are circumventing legislation by lying about the pay on wage slips at a higher rate at far fewer hours.

 

Not only is pay an issue, however the severe autocratic management approach staff are forced to endure threats of dismissal for not working fast enough to meet the near impossible deadlines.

 

The reporter enduring 3 months of this torture in the Sammi Leisurewear manufacturer in Leicester to rightly exploit this story saw branded clothing destined for nationally acclaimed high street retailers including New Look, BHS, Peacocks, Jane Norman and C&A being either made or packed there.

 

In addition to the fear infringed and lack of appropriate payment for arduous and illegal hours, health and safety was yet another vital employment policy ignored, housing only one blocked up fire exit and one partially accessible main exit. Staff had no access to drinking water and machinery was unsafe.

 

The reporter spent one day working in another unit in Leicester called Kiwi that paid just £3.33 per hour. Neither of the 2 factories had requested right to work documentation to work in the UK whilst packing clothing for New Look.

 

 

Despite the vast network of illegal workers infiltrating the fashion industry behind the big brands in the depths of the manufacturing sector in Leicester, it is far from the outstanding, safe, and loving environment provided in Haringey at the Florentia Clothing Village.