Over the course of 2020, the Covid-19 pandemic has exposed poor working conditions and unsatisfactory employment practices within the garment industry, both in low-income South Asian countries and also much closer to home. A recent localised outbreak of Covid-19 in the East Midlands city of Leicester in England has, in particular, been linked to “sweatshop” conditions in its many garment workshops. A local lockdown had to be imposed in Leicester on 30 June 2020, following a spike in the number of positive cases in several wards of the north-east of the city. The Leicester incident demonstrated once again that a “Made in Britain” label does not, by itself, guarantee an ethical supply chain.
The “dark factories” of Leicester, as described by investigative reporter Sarah O’ Connor in the Financial Times on 16 May 2018, have also featured in several other newspaper and magazine articles. In recent times, disused textile factories in the city have been converted into small workshops. These workshops supply the online purveyors of “fast fashion”, in the form of cheap ready-made garments, to a young clientele busy keeping up with ever-changing trends in the world of fashion. In these establishments, a low-paid and mostly female workforce, made up of South Asian, East European and African immigrants, slave away in tightly packed spaces within poorly ventilated Victorian red-brick buildings, many of which are reputedly fire hazards. Many workers speak little or no English, allowing for their easy exploitation by unscrupulous employers. Hourly wages are well below the national minimum wage-around £4 per for sewing machinists, and going down to £3 per hour for packers. Lockdown restrictions are frequently flouted and social distancing is mostly impossible, both in the workplace and in the workers’ overcrowded terraced living quarters . These conditions have proved most conducive to the unfettered community transmission of Covid-19.
Further afield, the Covid-19 pandemic has devastated the garment and textile industry in Bangladesh. Eighty per cent of the export earnings of this impoverished and densely populated country are derived from the manufacture of ready-made garments. But with a sharp decline in demand caused by the pandemic, global mass-market retailers and luxury labels have often failed to respect their prior commitments. Many of these firms have cancelled or suspended existing orders with their suppliers. Some have even demanded discounts on prices before they would accept any further supplies. It has been easy for them to do, since they neither own the factories nor directly employ the workers, many of whom are paid daily subsistence wages by contractors or sub-contractors. Unfortunately, many families in Bangladesh depend solely on these wages just to keep afloat. Many jobs have been lost in the midst of the pandemic and a sudden loss of income has forced many into near-destitution, further exacerbating widely prevalent poverty and hunger.
A lack of transparency in global supply chains is a major failing of the garment and textiles industries. Much of what is out of sight is also out of mind. A desire for high profit margins and maximum possible shareholders’ returns has seriously disadvantaged the worker at the bottom of the supply chain. It has taken recent major disasters in Bangladesh, such as the deaths of 117 people at Tazreen Fashions, a garment factory near Dhaka, in 2012 and of a further 1, 134 people at Rana Plaza, home to several garment factories, in 2013 to finally bring about change. Following these tragedies, the Bangladesh government, global retailers, and international organisations have become involved with various initiatives to improve building, electrical and fire safety standards. At the same time, new policies, regulations and laws have also been introduced to further protect the garment workers.
Sweatshops have yet to become part of history, as globalisation of trade has led to a revival of some of their practices. In Victorian England, sweatshops formed the backbone of the local economy in the East End of London. These establishments were involved with the manufacture of footwear, clothing and furniture. Just as today, cheap labour in sweatshops was mainly provided by immigrants from abroad, women, and internal migrants from other parts of the British Isles. Victorian working practices have unfortunately continued well into the present century, and are now being replicated on a large scale in the developing world. The problem seems unlikely to disappear in the near future. This is partly because the garment industry is very important for the economies of many developing countries such as Bangladesh and has undeniably given many poor people an opportunity to move into the lowest rungs of the economic ladder in the absence of any other viable options.
The Covid-19 pandemic has drawn attention to certain unsavoury practices within the garment trade. These revelations will hopefully facilitate improved working conditions in this frequently overlooked sector of the manufacturing economy. The time has come for better monitoring of workplace conditions and for the enforcement of good labour practices, and not just in Leicester, as modern slavery has yet to be abolished from the British Isles. The statutory licensing of firms involved in the garment trade is long overdue.
Ashis Banerjee