Giant retailers cashing in on poverty wages
Monday, 09 February 2009 12:27
Tesco, Aldi, Lidl, Walmart profit while supply chain workers face rights violations
Whilst the destructive role of global retailers Tesco, Aldi, Lidl and Walmart in the plight of small farmers and local retailers is well known, the worker exploitation fueling their growing range of cheap fast fashion has to date remained a well kept secret.
A new report released today by the Clean Clothes Campaign reveals that while supermarkets are seeing massive profits and increasing market share in the garment sector, workers in their supply chains face increasing poverty, appalling conditions, and serious workers rights violations.
“With a heavy heart we live like prisoners,” said one young woman working at a Bangladesh factory producing for Tesco and Walmart where there is no union and workers are told to lie to auditors about working conditions.
As the economic crisis worsens around the globe, CCC research in India, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, and Thailand entitled “Cashing In: Giant retailers, purchasing practices, and working conditions in the garment industry” shows how the discounter model used by these retailers squeezes suppliers and results in serious workers’ rights violations in their supply chains – enabling supermarkets to cash in, as consumers and workers are forced to tighten their belts.
Workers at factories supplying these retailers told researchers of working weeks as high as 90 hours, overtime unpaid, wages so low that families are malnourished, and strong resistance to any attempts at worker organising. At the same time suppliers revealed how the supermarkets are cranking up the pressure to deliver faster and produce cheaper – a model that makes a mockery of the social commitments made by these companies.
As one worker at an Indian supplier for Tesco and Walmart said of a corporate code of conduct, “We don’t read this, because reading it would not benefit us. We don’t get the benefits mentioned in it.”
The report reveals that failure to pay a living wage, increased use of temporary contracts, repression of union rights, excessive hours, and gender discrimination are key problems in the garment supply chains of these five global retailers. Retailers’ own purchasing practices – prices and schedules they impose on suppliers – create some of the biggest obstacles to implementing the very international labour standards they have committed to.
“The Giants’ size and price-breaking approach make them leaders in the global race to the bottom on working conditions,” said Sam Maher of Labour Behind the Label, the CCC’s UK platform.
The report marks the launch of the CCC's international Better Bargain campaign which shines the spotlight on the real cost of cheap supermarket clothing. Whilst campaigning efforts to date have focused on a voluntary approach by the clothing retailers, the report recommends stronger action by governments - a call only strengthened by the recession's flurry of corporate cost cutting which threatens even more extreme exploitation of the workers at the sharp end of the supermarkets' increasingly cheap fast fashion.
FOR MORE INFORMATION READ “CASHING IN”:
Download the summary
