“Garment workers going hungry as fallout from cancelled or orders takes toll- report”, 03 December 2020

The catastrophic fallout of the fashion industry’s decision to cancel billions of pounds of clothing orders at the start of the pandemic has left garment workers across the world facing chronic food shortages as wages plunge and factories close.

Interviews with nearly 400 garment workers in Myanmar, India, Indonesia, Lesotho, Haiti, Ethiopia, El Salvador, Cambodia and Bangladesh conducted by human rights group Worker Rights Consortium (WRC), found that almost 80% of workers, many making clothes for some of the world’s largest fashion brands, are going hungry. Almost a quarter of those surveyed said that they were facing daily food shortages.

“Brands bear substantial responsibility for the destitution garment workers are facing,” said Penelope Kyritsis, director of strategic research at WRC.

“The fashion industry has made its overseas workers exquisitely vulnerable to this crisis by paying them chronically low wages, leaving workers unprotected and unable to absorb the pandemic’s economic shocks. And the industry’s response to the crisis has often made matters worse. Unless something is done to help them we are likely to see tremendous suffering across global supply chains.”

In order to continue feeding their children, 75% of workers said they had taken out loans or gone into debt since the beginning of the pandemic.

“What is most concerning is that brands are now seemingly exploiting their suppliers’ desperation for orders by demanding lower prices and slower payment schedules, increasing the downward pressure on wages and making more job losses inevitable,” said Kyritsis.

The report says that the fashion industry should provide cash support to overseas workers throughout the Covid-19 crisis and ensure that workers are getting legally mandated severance and termination pay.