The secrets behind fast fashion

Amina was paid £3 an hour at the garment factory, £5.91 below the National Living Wage. She says that she couldn't ask for a pay rise for fear of getting fired.

The likelihood of employers being inspected regarding their implementation of minimum wage is once every 500 years. Written evidence from HMRC shows that UK-based garment factory owners have been forced to pay out almost £90,000 to employees for non-payment of minimum wage.

The United Kingdom is the sixth richest country in the world. Amina thinks the better life she came for must only be for the natives of the country. "I have never known what it's like to be comfortable money-wise, I hope one day the UK will accept me and I will be able to get a fair wage."

These bleak conditions have been known around the world. In 2013 the Bangladeshi Rana Plaza disaster opened the world's eyes to the harmful conditions festering within factory walls. The Rana Plaza building collapsed, killing at least 1,134 people and injuring more than 2,500 people - it housed five garment factories. The International Labour Organisation said: "Most factories do not meet standards required by building and construction legislation. As a result, deaths from fire incidents and building collapses are frequent."

Amina now does sewing work at home - she says the pay is a little better but wasn't willing to tell me how much it was exactly. She sews and tailors in a small room. The walls are lined with garments - all of which she is proud of. She says she's "glad" she got out of the factory. "Doing homework means I have more time with my children now."

*Names have been changed to protect identity

Saja's story

Saja Elmishri studied fashion at the University of Leicester. After she had graduated she interned in a Leicester garment factory in 2018. She quit after a few weeks because of the “unworkable” conditions.

“I made friends”, she says, “but we were forbidden to talk with each other”. The factory owner would keep a close eye on workers, ensuring maximum productivity and maximum profit. This often meant no small talk was allowed and Saja was often interrupted while getting to know her co-workers. Saja recounts a tense conversation between the factory owner regarding the productivity of workers.

"You have to be really quick to give the workers their materials," they said to Saja. In this case, Saja was in charge of the arms of a jumper product. They continued with the grim words:

The chilling exchange left Saja shocked and confused. “I couldn’t believe it; how can another human think of someone like that.” She was unaware of this treatment before she stepped into her first garment factory. The second one was worse.

“The entrance was clean and polished,” she says. "I thought this may be one that operates fairly." Saja's hopes were soon crushed once the boss took her down to the factory floor. “It was like I was in a different building. Another world entirely.”

Saja says she tried to remain positive despite seeing the poor factory conditions. "But I had a gut feeling that something wasn't right, here especially."

This hesitation was soon confirmed when she saw a pitiful scene. "One machinist had a poster of a tropical blue sea on the wall adjacent to work-station. They would sew and look up at the poster in a consistent motion - like they wished they were there.” Saja says the things she witnessed in this factory were "sweatshop-like"; an allusion to the deplorable conditions seen predominantly in South Asia.

Saja says she can deduce from her own reasoning that the workers had little choice but to stay and work in these Victorian-esque conditions. "If you have no other work being offered to you and no other form of income, it's often the only choice to work in such diabolical conditions."

Saja interned at a third and her final factory in Leicester. In this one, she was shown around by the factory manager. "The offices on the top floor were glossy and pristine, but history repeated. I was taken on the tour - again it was another story." Saja says the operation she saw was a "fraud". The factories she visited allegedly had 50 machines that cost £15,000 each, according to Saja. "They have the money for workable conditions, they just don't want to use it." Saja says the ceiling in this particular factory was crumbling - a very concerning sign.

As Saja progressed through the third factory the reality of the truly unworkable conditions became apparent. Each room got hotter and hotter the further she went in.

It makes Saja emotional to talk about her experience. Hundreds of garment factory workers experience these conditions every day. This is their reality being hidden in a city in the East Midlands. England’s 21^st Century.

This insatiable need for maximum productivity is detrimental in all aspects, according to reports. A Human Rights Watch report found that "cutting corners" practices with the sole aim to bring down costs were rife in garment factories all over the globe. The report, titled Paying for a Bus Ticket and Expecting to Fly, found some common methods factory owners implement to get workers to produce more. Examples include: "Restricting workers’ toilet breaks; trimming their meal breaks; disallowing drinking water breaks and other rest breaks."

These stories offer an insight into the reality of some fast fashion factories - and the urgency for change is evident.

This idea is not new - many have been pushing for the same solution. Sir Peter Soulsby - Mayor of Leicester - called a meeting with the aim of bringing together the retailers and the trade unions to get the action needed to resolve the issue.

This call, also supported by the regional secretary of Trade Union Congress (TUC Midlands), Lee Baron, was made via an open letter to the CEOs of nine fashion companies. The list includes Arcadia Group, ASOS, New Look, Quiz, Boohoo, Next, River Island, Missguided and TK Maxx.

The letter addresses the issues in Leicester's factories specifically. It reads:

"We are aware that efforts have been made to implement auditing systems to ensure that factories are complying with basic requirements of employment law, but these have clearly not been successfully implemented universally and too many people remain employed across Leicester with sub-standard terms and conditions."

The letter was in addition to a round-table summit hosted by Sir Peter in a bid to encourage "all employers to sign a TUC agreement committing these retailers to procure from manufacturers who recognise and work with trade unions," according to the TUC website.

Andrew Bridgen, MP for North West Leicestershire said last year that he believed there were approximately 10,000 people in the UK’s clothing industry being paid £3 to £4 an hour in conditions of modern slavery.

TUC's Campaign Support Officer, Rob Johnston, talked about how the trade union model - a model that involves garment workers joining trade unions to represent them - would help to eradicate the problems seen in various Leicester factories.

The impact of Leicester's tarnished reputation is being felt already. Companies like Boohoo Group Plc have pulled production from over 60 Leicester garment factories. A Boohoo spokesman declined to say how many businesses had been cut. As a result of this move from Boohoo Group Plc, workers are losing their jobs entirely and the entrenched problems are not being rooted out effectively.

Rob explained the effect of such a big change to garment district on a city like Leicester.

The Senior Joint Head of Highfields Centre, Priya Thamotheran, said in October 2019 a meeting set up by the Ethical Trading Initiative was hosted in the centre. The meeting was attended by the ETI, various trade unions and clothing brands. Priya offered solutions to the conditions being endured in some Leicester factories. "I suggested building connections with garment factory workers to begin to build up trust and confidence. This was in order to propel action to address whatever issues they were facing, whether that has to do with paid holiday, the working conditions and so forth."

These recommendations were set to be implemented in January 2020. Priya and his team left feeling hopeful of the changes set to be made to Leicester's garment industry. Instead little came of this meeting. Slowly - one by one - each brand dropped out. By February 2020 Priya was informed that the last brand at the initial meeting had dropped out. The reason given to Priya was disheartening for him to hear.

"They said that Leicester textile factories were too tough for them to continue the linkages," he said.

Priya said if the recommendations from his team had been implemented as planned in January 2020, Leicester would be perceived in a flattering light sans this pandemic-driven tarnished reputation. "A lot of agony and pain could have been saved if that project had gone ahead because, in the absence of such an initiative, talk of how 'bad' Leicester is will continue."

Priya and his team were ignored by major brands - showing how rife contempt is in the industry. "We were saying something needed to be set up, where that essential trust and confidence could have been built up between our development workers and the factory workers to begin to work out these issues." Ultimately, these calls were ignored.

With 93% of brands surveyed by the Fashion Checker not paying garment workers a living wage, government complacency as Cllr Clarke outlines, is not the right step for those who are suffering. Fashion Checker states: "The majority of garment workers are unable to afford life's basic necessities. Fair pay for labour is a fundamental human right, but none of the biggest fashion brands pay garment workers a wage they can live on."

This outlines the extremity and urgency of the issue. Brands seem not to be listening attentively to the outcries from campaigners, as it was revealed last year that the likes of Fashion Nova, Boohoo, Revolve, Pretty Little Thing and Forever 21 all scored less than 10% on the Fashion Transparency Index (FTI). The FTI is a product of Fashion Revolution - the world’s largest fashion activism movement.

Co-founder and creative director of Fashion Revolution, Orsola de Castro, said: "What we do know for a fact is that those responsible for the wellbeing of those people i.e. their employers knew of the conditions the workers are facing. That is what is important because they absolutely knew and they did nothing."

War on Want, an anti-poverty charity campaign that aims to uplift garment workers, demands accountability from UK clothing brands, and is asking for globally binding agreements to protect workers throughout the supply chain.

Senior Economic Justice Campaigner at the campaign, Owen Espley, talks about the difficulties of tackling the issues head-on.

Supervisors who answer the door to enquiring journalists have been known to say that they are not allowed to speak to them. “We are busy and have to work now. I’m not allowed to discuss any matter about it,” one said to a Guardian journalist.

Multiple Leicester-based factory owners who had bad practice allegations were approached for this project; no comment was given. Insolvency Service data revealed more than 50 factory owners of clothing manufacturers in Leicester had been struck off for a combined total of more than 400 years in cases costing HMRC millions. One of the main reasons for their bans was due to minimum wage issues.

Changemakers are battling for progress - and it is working slowly. Their campaigns are chipping away at retailers and noise often leads to action. Breakthroughs are occurring but more pace is evidently needed to help the workers as efficiently as possible.

Government action has been sparse in terms of actively combatting and controlling the poor working conditions in Leicester. Boohoo Group Plc CEO, John Lyttle, asked the government to take a more active role in “protecting people being exploited in UK garment factories” in a letter to Home Secretary Priti Patel.

Cllr Clarke also called for more government involvement in the matter. He said that the government were "sitting on their hands" when it came to actively sorting out the issues in Leicester.

The Environmental Audit Committee launched an inquiry into the fashion and garment industry in the UK. The committee started its work in 2018 and the following year presented its recommendations to the government in its report titled: Fixing Fashion: clothing consumption and sustainability. The government rejected most of these changes - which included giving more responsibility to producers of garments and due diligence checks across fashion supply chains to root out forced labour.

The committee specified the area of Leicester as of high concern. "The Covid-19 pandemic has shone a light on garment factories in Leicester. Reports of poor working conditions suggest there has been little improvement since the Committee’s report, which recommended regular audits and for companies to engage with unions for their workers."

The Fixing Fashion oral evidence meeting was held on the 16th December 2020. It collected the voices of the most influential powers in the fashion industry.

One of these voices was the Senior Policy Adviser of the Traidcraft Exchange charity, Fiona Gooch. She explained that accountability should be shared beyond the factory owners, saying that the purchasing practice culture of retailers of buying cheaper garments from suppliers was a leading cause of the issues seen in the industry. If suppliers - the garment factories producing the goods - are in a price war with other suppliers, then they are forced to drive down their costs which leads to malpractice arising, according to Fiona. She added that fast fashion retailers often want the cheapest supplier to maximise their own profits.

The International Labour Organisation estimates 86 million garment workers are in severe hardship around the world. Fiona expanded on this point in the committee hearing. She said: "Often garment workers are the main breadwinners of their family and they can now no longer pay rent, they cannot buy food, they cannot pay for their children’s education, much less medical care, given that we have Covid." She continued, saying many garment workers were working in very unsafe conditions both internationally and in Leicester.

Fiona added that these issues could not be solved by voluntary action. "It is not possible to persuade retailers to change their abusive purchasing practices. Sixteen thousand people campaigned with Traidcraft Exchange, asking the brands to pay up."

She said these efforts along with the Prompt Payment Code (defined as the gold standard in payment terms and plays an important role in bringing about a culture change in payment practices) were ignored - despite the media exposés. She suggested, on behalf of Traidcraft Exchange, that a regulator in the form of an adjudicator and licensing was a viable solution.

An adjudicator, in this case, would operate as a body that could carry out independent investigations and challenge companies to focus on priority areas, to help "curb abusive purchasing practices". Fiona added: "There is no action in this space at the moment. We need it for a level playing field."

Boohoo Group Plc responded to the allegations accusing them of malpractice uncovered in various reports. The group said in a statement to its board that they were "shocked and appalled" by the allegations - but what are they doing to rectify these long-standing issues?

The group issued an independent review into its Leicester supply chain. Conducted by Alison Levitt QC in September 2020, it stated Boohoo's monitoring of its Leicester supply chain was inadequate and that the allegations about "poor working conditions and low rates of pay in many Leicester factories are not merely well-founded but substantially true".

However, Ms Levitt found: "The problems in Leicester are complex and of long-standing and Boohoo is not solely to blame; others too are responsible for not having gripped this over many years." Ms Levvitt made many recommendations to Boohoo Group Plc, all of which the company accepted.

The following November, Boohoo Group Plc appointed Sir Brian Leveson to independently oversee its Agenda for Change programme, which implements the recommendations of Levitt’s report. The Group have focused on six key areas identified in the Levitt Review - "improving corporate governance, redefining purchasing practices, raising supply chain standards, supporting Leicester workers and their rights, backing suppliers and showing best practice in action", according to the company. Boohoo Group Plc's website says: "Everyone in the Boohoo family is determined to ensure that we live up to the expectations of our customers, our shareholders and the general public in delivering on our commitments."

Boohoo recognised that changing their supply chain will not be easy to do single-handledy. Mr Reaney addresses the fact that in order to make a real change to Leicester's garment district help is required from all garment factories.

Conflictingly, Mr Kamani attempted to distance the Boohoo Group from Leicester garment factories saying: "We recognise in this industry when we are dealing with an independent factory who is not owned by us, that some of them do not play with a straight bat, as it were."

However, Mr Davies spoke about the impact of such a statement.

Mr Davies continued, saying that the steps being taken by Boohoo to improve its supply chain will be closely monitored by the Committee. He said: "It would be good to see them become fully transparent."

One of the most recent developments in the Boohoo case is the Modern Slavery statement the company issued in February 2021. The statement says: "One of the key commitments we have made as part of our Agenda for Change is to set up a Trust in Leicester which will be overseen and managed by an independent Board of Trustees. We will invest £1 million in this Trust and are currently recruiting for Trustees."

The Trust is said to be for all garment workers in the Leicester Community. It will provide access to grants and crisis funds for those in need and will champion workers’ rights across the sector - a step in the right direction.

As of 19th May 2021 Boohoo has linked a £150 million bonus scheme for its top managers to the improvement of conditions in factories. The company said that their board would have the power to reduce the pay out to 15 key managers, including Mahmud Kamani, if the group’s Agenda for Change programme was not implemented in full.