A study commissioned by a new body, the Garment and Textile Workers Trust, says that many Leicester garment workers are paid below the minimum wage and receive no holiday pay, almost two years after revelations about poor standards in the city’s factories.
Complaints included workers not being allowed to take breaks, lack of sick pay and being pressured to work long shifts.
The study is funded by online ultrafast fashion retailer Boohoo, as part of efforts to clean up its act following revelations about poor practice in the Group’s Leicester supply chain.
As per reports, 116 workers who filled a questionnaire – carried out for the University of Nottingham’s Rights Lab and De Montfort University between November last year and this March – revealed they continued to suffer poor treatment.
The study says that 49 per cent of workers involved in the study received no sick pay, 56 per cent had been paid below the minimum wage, 55 per cent did not receive holiday pay and a third had no contract and did not receive a payslip.
Boohoo, which holds its annual shareholder meeting in Leicester later this week to highlight its work to improve conditions in factories there, provided £100,000 to set up the trust and a further £1 million to fund its first year of grants.
The body, which is led by an independent board of trustees, is intended to provide support, remedy and advocacy for workers across Leicester’s garment and textile industry.
A Boohoo Group spokesperson said the company’s main reason for funding the start-up of the trust was to support it in “empowering workers to help eradicate any driver of exploitation.”
