Tesco, Primark ‘poverty profits’ attacked
20 April 2009
NEWS HOOK
Tuesday, 21 April 2009: Tesco and Primark (Associated British Foods) announce profits growth
Retailers slated over clothes workers' pay
Leading British retailers Tesco and Primark today are accused of cashing in on the recession with cheap fashion sales by exploiting overseas garment workers.
The accusation comes as this morning Tesco announced record £3 billion full-year profits and Primark's owner, Associated British Foods, revealed a half-year 10 per cent rise in the retailer's profits.
The charity War on Want condemned both companies for driving down labour costs from suppliers, whose employees pay a high price through poverty pay and worsening living standards.
Its research published in December showed workers producing clothes for Tesco and Primark in the Bangladeshi capital Dhaka earn as little as 7p an hour for up to 80-hour weeks.
Some employees receive only the minimum wage, £13.97 (1663 taka) a month, far less than the £44.82 (5333 taka) needed for nutritious food, clean water, shelter, clothes, education, health care and transport.
The average workers' pay, £19.16 (2280 taka) a month, represented less than half a living wage.
Amid food and fuel inflation, employees' living standards had fallen since War on Want interviewed them two years earlier.
Last June the charity and the group Labour Behind the Label reported that workers making Tesco clothes in the Indian city of Bangalore struggled on less than £1.50 a day for a 60-hour week, with higher rice prices making life even harder.
Employees in the factory earn on average £38 a month, and the lowest paid receive just £30, while the Bangalore Garment and Textile Workers' Union calculates a living wage as at least £52 a month.
Simon McRae, senior campaigns officer at War on Want, said: "Tesco and Primark are thriving by selling cheap clothes while the workers producing them are paid a pittance. Despite the retailers' continued promises, wages remain well below living costs for garment workers and their families. It is high time the UK government stopped this abuse."
NOTE TO EDITORS: War on Want's research in Bangladesh and India is available at:
http://www.waronwant.org/news/press-releases/16361-poverty-clothes-shame-primark
http://www.waronwant.org/news/press-releases/16151-tesco-sweatshop-shame-fury
CONTACT: Paul Collins, War on Want media office (+44) (0)20 7549 0584 or (+44) (0)7983 550728
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