‘Clothes price rises leave workers poor’
16 September 2010
NEWS PEG: Friday, 17 September 2010 London Fashion Week opens
Hardship pay 'disgraces' London Fashion Week
Clothes retailers today come under fire over their warnings that rising costs of cotton will increase prices as campaigners signal that stores continue to exploit overseas garment workers struggling to survive on poverty pay.
The warning, from the charity War on Want, coincides with the opening of London Fashion Week.
Primark and Next predict higher clothes prices amid the rising cost of cotton due to factors such as the floods in Pakistan, one of the world's biggest cotton producers, and fears over cotton crops in rain-threatened China
War on Want pointed to its research which revealed that workers making Primark clothes in three Bangladeshi factories earned well below a living wage – as little as 7p an hour for up to 80-hour weeks.
The charity also cited its research on another Primark factory in Bangladesh where workers toil up to 84 hours a week and earn as little as £19 a month – less than half a living wage.
Last month the Observer claimed Indian workers faced hardship toiling up to 16 hours a day for 26p an hour making clothes for Next and Gap and 25p an hour producing Marks & Spencer clothes.
The Sunday Times in January cited Sri Lanka workers toiling six days a week, producing M&S and Next garments for take home basic pay of less than £50 a month.
But War on Want senior campaigns officer Simon McRae said: "Clothes retailers will continue to pile up big profits, despite hikes in cotton prices. Yet the workers making their clothes will remain trapped in dire poverty. It is high time the British government tackled this disgrace with tough regulation on the fashion industry."
CONTACT: Paul Collins, War on Want media office (+44) (0)20 7549 0584 or (+44) (0)7983 550728
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