New Primark store attacked on 'sweatshops'
05 November 2009
NEWS PEG: Friday, 6 November 2009 Primark opens big new store in Cambridge
7p an hour protest targets Cambridge opening
Primark today came under fire for exploiting garment workers as Britain's leading cheap fashion retailer prepared to open its new Cambridge store.This criticism, from anti-poverty charity War on Want, came in advance of the store's Burleigh Street launch tomorrow (Friday, 6 November). The charity unleashed its broadside amid Primark's announcement that the retailer made operating profits of £252 million in the year to 12 September - up 8 per cent - with sales 20 per cent higher at £2.3 billion.
War on Want claimed employees in three Bangladeshi factories toiled up to 80-hour weeks for as little as 7p an hour. It contrasts the three-floor Cambridge store's 54,000 square feet of space with the tiny one-room 100 square feet slum homes Primark garment workers share with four or five family members in the Bangladeshi capital Dhaka.
War on Want says Primark is cashing in on cheap fashion at the expense of garment workers by opening the Cambridge store and another next week at London's Wood Green in the run-up to Christmas. In addition, the retailer has earmarked a site for a new Edinburgh branch 30 per cent bigger than its original location. It is also reported to plan a massive store in a huge £675 million extension to a Cardiff shopping centre.
But while Primark stores climb towards the 200 mark in six countries, the charity warns that rising food prices are deepening poverty for its Bangladeshi garment workers.
Simon McRae, senior campaigns officer at the charity, said: "Primark is booming in the recession by keeping clothes prices so low at a terrible cost to its garment workers' living standards. Letting the retailers police themselves has failed to ensure workers decent pay and conditions. Now Gordon Brown must act to stop this abuse."
War on Want is making the biggest-ever call for British government action to stop fashion retailers exploiting overseas workers. Thousands of people have already signed up to the charity's Love Fashion Hate Sweatshops campaign for 50,000 names demanding that Brown regulates the industry.
The push is also endorsed by television star Jo Wood, pop singer Little Boots, actors Gael Garcia Bernal and Ashley Jensen and clothes designer Betty Jackson. Among other backers are TV personality Tony Robinson, actor-playwright Kwame Kwei-Armah, comedians Jo Brand and Francesca Martinez and gardener Bob Flowerdew. Supportive public figures include Jack Dromey, deputy general secretary of Unite, the UK's largest trade union, Mary Turner, president of the GMB union, Safia Minney, director of fair trade fashion company People Tree, Queen's Counsel Michael Mansfield, the leading human rights lawyer, human rights campaigner Peter Tatchell, journalist John Pilger and cartoonist Martin Rowson.
People can add their names on the campaign's website at www.lovefashionhatesweatshops.org
NOTE TO EDITORS
According to War on Want research, workers making clothes for Primark in the Bangladeshi capital Dhaka received on average only £19.16 (2280 taka) a month, under half a living wage. Some employees were paid only the minimum wage, £13.97 (1663 taka) a month, far less than the £44.82 (5333 taka) needed to escape dire hardship. The vast majority of employees live in small, crowded shacks, many of which lack plumbing and adequate washing facilities. Though forced overtime is illegal in Bangladesh, employees said they were made to toil extra hours, often unpaid. Workers complained that in the fast fashion rush to produce the latest styles, many of them suffered verbal and physical abuse as they struggled to meet unrealistic targets. Yet the Dhaka workers said none of their factories was unionised. Ifat, who toils in a factory supplying all three retailers, said: "I can't feed my children three meals a day."
CONTACT: Paul Collins, War on Want media office (+44) (0)20 7549 0584 or (+44) (0)7983 550728
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