Press release for immediate use: 9 December, 2022
Representatives from the human rights campaign group Labour Behind the Label will today raise concerns that Primark is not doing enough to protect workers during the global economic downturn.
The garment industry is facing a crunch point as the global economic downturn sends shockwaves through all economies. Garment suppliers, both in the UK and overseas have reported a drop in orders from brands which is further squeezing supplier factories still reeling from pandemic-related financial loss.
These financial losses are ultimately passed on to workers themselves. The Clean Clothes Campaign estimates that garment workers are owed $11 billion in unpaid wages from the first 12 months of the pandemic alone [1]. Reductions in orders during the Covid-19 crisis resulted in a wave of factory closures, resulting in thousands of workers who were not paid their legally owed severance [2].
Factory closures are set to continue in the current economic downturn, and losses will continue to be passed on to workers, with short-term contracts not renewed, wages and compensation unpaid.
Labour Behind the Label will ask what Primark is doing to ensure its due diligence is met with respect to ensuring workers receive their pay and severance when factories do close, and specifically whether it will meet requests from unions to join a binding severance guarantee fund to protect workers from bearing the cost of factory closures.
“I have to pay debt, water, and electricity bills monthly, but my wages are not enough. I don’t want to see high production targets with a decreasing number of workers to meet them. We don’t have enough income to pay for our basic living costs.”
Worker producing for Primark in Cambodia [3]
“Primark has continued to profit after the pandemic. For them, the crisis may be over, but the workers making their clothes are still impacted by pandemic-related wage theft and live under the constant threat of job loss due to reducing orders. Primark must ensure that the most vulnerable in their supply chain do not pay the biggest price during the economic crisis. They must commit to a binding severance guarantee to provide a safety net for the workers who make their clothes.”
Meg Lewis, Campaigns Lead – Labour Behind the Label
“Primark has continued to profit after the pandemic. For them the crisis may be over, but the workers making their clothes are still impacted by pandemic-related wage theft and live under the threat of job loss due to reducing orders. Primark must ensure that the most vulnerable in their supply chain do not pay the biggest price during the economic crisis. They must commit to a binding severance guarantee to provide a safety net for the workers who make their clothes.”
The full text of the question being put to the Primark board is available here.
ENDS
Notes to editors:
- Labour Behind the Label is a campaign that works to improve conditions and empower workers in the global garment industry.
- The Primark Annual General Meeting will be held at Congress Centre, 28 Great Russell Street on Friday, 9 December 2022 at 11 am.
[1] Clean Clothes Campaign (2021) Still Underpaid: How the garment industry has failed to pay its garment workers during the pandemic
[2] Workers Rights Consortium (2021) Fired, then robbed: Fashion brands’ complicity in wage theft during Covid-19.
[3] Clean Clothes Campaign (2021) Breaking point: Wage theft, violence and excessive workloads are pushing garment workers to breaking point during the pandemic.