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Garment workers paid £3 an hour??
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Garment workers paid £3 an hour??
February 27, 2015 at 7:14 PM
Recently the Ethical Trading Initiative and the University of Leicester released a report into the local garment industry.
The headline grabbing finding was that many of Leicester's garment workers are paid less than half of the minimum wage. From the University's article on the report:
"The majority of workers in Leicester’s garment sector earn around £3 per hour (compared to a National Minimum Wage rate of £6.50), receive wages cash in hand, and do not hold an employment contract."
This is an issue we care about deeply, and have written about before. And it's absolutely worth reading the reports full findings about what's happening to people working in the UK garment industry.
Incidentally, we've explicitly had this conversation with our factory, about how much staff are paid. We know that the people knitting up and making our garments are:
- paid more than the minimum wage;
- have 'mandatory' holiday, three times a year when the factory closes down so parents can join their children at school holidays.
It does push our prices up, but we think the people who make the clothes are worth it. Because, seriously, why wouldn't you?
