Good Jobs, fair wages: NEXT Says No 

We went to a Leicester industry event and the NEXT AGM to ask if brands will support garment workers in the city

In May, we went to Leicester Made, a local showcase for the industry aimed at promoting local suppliers and connecting them with opportunities. We brought the demands of workers – and they are simple and just. Garment workers in Leicester – like garment workers across the world, want to be able to live full and secure lives and provide for themselves and their loved ones. But the missing piece is the commitment from Big Fashion to good jobs and living wages. With power still entirely in the hands of brands to set pricing, volumes and speed of orders, we are heartened to see conversations seeking government support through procurement, as well as diversifying with small startup brands. The question is, are things moving quickly enough for the thousands of workers in precarity right now?

The next day, our campaigns lead Alena Ivanova attended NEXT’s AGM to ask a question about jobs and poverty wages. In many ways, NEXT is a Leicester success story. Based just down the road from the once busy garment factories, this UK household name is doing more than well. In 2024, NEXT reported over £1 billion in profit. Their CEO, Simon Wolfson takes home a cool £4.7 million. 

Yet none of that success compels them to lift up the wages and conditions of their garment workers – or indeed their retail staff. The motion, coordinated by Share Action around living wages and transparency on wage setting for their staff gained an impressive 26% support despite the board’s recommendation to reject. The Board also refused to make a commitment to Leicester garment workers, with Simon Wolfson citing the impossibility to commit to volumes and their reticence to ‘take jobs away from others who might need them more’. Were NEXT doing everything in their power to ensure that all their garment workers across the supply chain were paid living wage and proactively preventing rights abuses, this concern would ring less hollow. But sadly this is not the case. 

From Sri Lanka to Bangladesh to Pakistan economic turmoil has left workers exposed to crippling inflation and rising costs of living while they continue to be paid poverty wages. In fact, the continued impoverishment of garment workers is practically embedded in Big Fashion’s business model. When CEOs talk about flexibility and responding to the market, on the ground this looks like women losing jobs, women falling further in debt, women left with nothing from one day to the next because working with one factory or another no longer makes business sense. Without living wages as the bare minimum, workers are entirely without tools or a safety net to rebuild their lives after a fashion brand decides to be ‘flexible’ at the cost of their job.

For now, NEXT maintain that this social cost is none of their concern. But the tide is turning, and we won’t stop making workers’ demands heard! From Leicester to Lahore, we all deserve a living wage.