Time to stamp out modern slavery in retail

The Abo­li­tion of the Slave Trade Act entered the statute book on March 25, 1807, pro­hibit­ing slav­ery in the British Empire. Yet, more than 200 years lat­er, slav­ery still exists, with work­ers being ruth­less­ly exploit­ed for com­mer­cial gain. And, sad­ly, this is hap­pen­ing in our retail indus­try.

While retail­ers have been work­ing hard to stamp out labour exploita­tion in their sup­ply chains, human rights abus­es con­tin­ue to occur. Take Leices­ter, the cen­tre of UK cloth­ing and tex­tile man­u­fac­ture, home to the remains of King Richard III, a tri­umphant foot­ball team and respect­ed uni­ver­si­ties. Despite this appear­ance as mod­ern and for­ward think­ing, approx­i­mate­ly 10,000 gar­ment work­ers are being exploit­ed in its fac­to­ries; forced to work long hours for £3 to £4 an hour at best. How can this be hap­pen­ing right under our noses?

Lobbying government to safeguard fair pay

The British Retail Con­sor­tium and our mem­bers are doing all we can to elim­i­nate these exploita­tive prac­tices from sup­ply chains. Our mem­bers are work­ing with Fast For­ward, a sup­ply chain labour stan­dards improve­ment pro­gramme, that expos­es hid­den exploita­tion and assess­es adher­ence to employ­ment laws and eth­i­cal labour stan­dards require­ments. It pro­vides train­ing for sup­pli­ers, imple­ments bet­ter sup­pli­er terms and black­lists exploita­tive sup­pli­ers. How­ev­er, more must be done to raise the entire UK fash­ion and tex­tile indus­try to the same stan­dards. 

We also work with enforce­ment agen­cies such as the Gang­mas­ters and Labour Abuse Author­i­ty (GLAA), which is rais­ing aware­ness of the prob­lem and fight­ing to “pro­tect vul­ner­a­ble and exploit­ed work­ers and dis­rupt exploita­tive prac­tices and help bring crim­i­nals to jus­tice”. We have also signed up to the Appar­el and Gen­er­al Mer­chan­dise Pub­lic and Pri­vate Pro­to­col.

In July, we wrote to home sec­re­tary Pri­ti Patel – the let­ter was signed by more than 50 MPs and peers, and 40 retail­ers, investors and NGOs – to demand a fit-to-trade licens­ing scheme for UK gar­ment fac­to­ries. This scheme would pro­tect work­ers from forced labour, debt bondage and mis­treat­ment, ensur­ing pay­ment of the nation­al min­i­mum wage, VAT, PAYE, Nation­al Insur­ance and hol­i­day pay.

It would also pro­vide an equal oppor­tu­ni­ty for busi­ness­es to com­pete fair­ly and pre­vent mis­cre­ant busi­ness­es from under­cut­ting hon­est man­u­fac­tur­ers. Sim­i­lar licens­ing schemes exist in farm­ing, with any­one who sup­plies work­ers for activ­i­ties such as har­vest­ing pro­duce requir­ing a licence from the GLAA to oper­ate.

More must be done to protect retail workers

It is incred­i­bly dis­ap­point­ing that the gov­ern­ment has still not act­ed on these pro­pos­als; they are effec­tive­ly extend­ing the suf­fer­ing these indi­vid­u­als are forced to endure. Every week that goes by rep­re­sents tens of mil­lions of pounds of refused wages. This lost mon­ey is cru­cial; it rep­re­sents the mouths that can­not be fed and the homes that can­not be heat­ed.

We will not stop cam­paign­ing until seri­ous action is tak­en. We are cur­rent­ly work­ing with MPs, notably Dr Lisa Cameron, chair of the All-Par­ty Par­lia­men­tary Group for Tex­tiles and Fash­ion, who tabled a motion in Par­lia­ment call­ing on the gov­ern­ment to “imple­ment the British Retail Consortium’s pro­pos­al for a fit-to-trade licens­ing scheme for all gar­ment fac­to­ries in the UK”. 

The gov­ern­ment could adopt such a licens­ing scheme with­in months; it is a clear, attain­able step. Cus­tomers want to know the clothes they buy have been made by work­ers who are val­ued, respect­ed, paid prop­er­ly and pro­tect­ed by the law.

We can­not let these oppor­tu­ni­ties pass us by. We must work to rebuild a more sus­tain­able and eth­i­cal future for the mil­lions of peo­ple who make our busi­ness pos­si­ble, and for the world we live in.