As fashion brands and retailers across the world return to profitability, following what has been an immensely difficult period of international store closures due to plummeting demand for fashion, for those making the world’s clothing, the story is far from over.
According to a new report by the Clean Clothes Campaign, Asian garment workers are owed almost 12 billion dollars in unpaid wages and severance in the first year of the pandemic.
The ‘Still Un(der)paid’ report estimates that workers are owed 11.85 billion dollars for the period from March 2020 through March 2021 as employers withheld or reduced wages and international fashion brands and retailers cancelled orders, refused to pay for goods or demanded price reductions.
In December 2012 Dr. Bill Pomfret wrote a lengthy article about the Dhaka garment factory fire broke out on 24 November 2012, in the Tazreen Fashion factory in the Ashulia district on the outskirts of Dhaka, Bangladesh.117 people were confirmed dead in the fire, and over 200 were injured, Fire exit doors where locked, the alarm system was “out of order” exit routes where cluttered with material
Just a few weeks later On 24 April 2013, Rana Plaza, an eight-story building in the suburb of Savar which housed multiple clothing manufacturing companies along with a bank and some apartments, collapsed killing over 1,100 workers and injuring 2,000 more The building was evacuated days earlier due to a large crack spotted on one of the outer walls. After the accident, the owner of the building was arrested for not possessing adequate safety permits when constructing Rana Plaza, and the clothing factory managers were detained for making their employees come to work in an unsafe environment.
On 3 February 2016 a fire broke out on the 7th floor at the Matrix Sweaters factory in Gazipur at around 7.30 am killing at least four workers. Because of the early hour, most of the 6,000 workers had not yet arrived, preventing a much greater loss of life.
Dr. Bill Pomfret of Safety Projects International provides an International service, inspecting factories health & safety standards, his employers are the large International stores in North America and Europe
Not only do workers have many safety problems to overcome, but employers frequently with-hold wages, many are represented by the Clean Clothes Campaign, who said many dismissed workers were not paid their full legal entitlements to severance pay, and others who were put on furlough were only paid a small percentage of their usual wages.
Workers in all researched countries, except for Indonesia, had lost pay equivalent to at least twice the average monthly wage.
‘We cannot count on brands’ own initiatives’
The Clean Clothes Campaign is calling on apparel brands to negotiate an enforceable agreement to assure wages, establish a severance guarantee fund and ensure respect for basic labour rights.
The organisation said: “Such a binding agreement, to be negotiated and signed by trade unions with brands, individual employers, or employer associations, will require signatory brands to ensure workers in their supply chains receive their regular wages during the period of the Covid-19 pandemic, in addition to ensuring payment of severance compensation for workers at factories that close or undertake a mass dismissal, and respect basic labour rights.”
This photo illustrates the over-crowding in Dhaka
The report builds on the Clean Clothes Campaign’s August 2020 ‘Un(der)paid in the Pandemic’ report, which estimated that the income and severance loss for the first three months of the pandemic was in the range of 3.2 to 5.8 billion dollars.
It is obvious that not enough has been done to help workers despite over 100 fashion brands joining together in a ‘Call to Action’ for the garment industry since the beginning of the pandemic.
“We cannot count on brands’ own initiatives or the voluntary programs they hide behind to deliver for workers,” he said. “It is urgent that companies negotiate and sign a binding and enforceable agreement with unions to prevent millions of garment workers and their families from being driven even deeper into destitution at best.” Or losing their lives in a fire.
BIO:
Dr Bill Pomfret; MSc; FIOSH; RSP. FRSH;
Founder & President.
Safety Projects International Inc, &
Dr. Bill Pomfret & Associates.
26 Drysdale Street, Kanata, Ontario.K2K 3L3.
www.spi5star.com pomfretb@spi5star.com
Tel 613-2549233