Report: Unboxing Marketplace Fashion – Worker rights in the supply chains behind online fashion consumption

This report asserts that Amazon marketplace provides access for hundreds of thousands of small fashion brands to consumer sales, but that these unseen brands and their sourcing may be leading to a growth in orders from small suppliers with limited worker rights protections.

We traced three products sold on Amazon Marketplace to factories in Pakistan, where workers were not paid minimum wages, worked excessive hours to feed their families, had no contracts, payslips or social security registrations, and were having their union rights consistently undermined. Although a small sample, tracing these three products to suppliers with noticeably more exploitative conditions than larger factories in the area, gives an indication that a greater risk may exist due to the approach of hidden sellers to supplier standards.

Brits are spending more online on fashion than ever before making Amazon hugely influential for fashion’s global supply chain. Mandatory requirements over Amazon sellers, for transparency and human rights due diligence could prove pivotal in worker rights attainment.