In its annual Let's Clean Up Fashion Report, Labour Behind The Label has named & shamed the 15 worst retailers for exploiting foreign labour:
1. = Alexon; BHS; House of Fraser; & Peacock Group (4-way tie)
"These companies do not accept the principle of a living wage & did not respond to requests for information."
5. Ethel Austin
"Accepts principle of a living wage but applies legal minimum / industry benchmark, but otherwise did not respond to requests for information. It is therefore safe to assume the worst - it has no engagement with ethical trading at all."
6. LeviStrauss & Co
"LeviStrauss takes no responsibility for living wages as it believes that responsibility lies with the market and with governments to set and enforce decent wage levels. Its business model encourages governments to keep wages low and places suppliers and countries in competition."
7. John Lewis
"John Lewis has adopted a classic hands-off audit approach, which sadly takes little notice of the difficulties faced by many workers in supplier factories. A very disappointing approach to workers' rights from a company that should be doing a lot more."
8. Clarks
"Although Clarks' code promises wages to meet basic needs, legal minimums are far from this and no steps have been taken to research or implement the real deal."
9. French Connection
"It's clear that French Connection continues to take little responsibility for labour rights in its supply chain. Although French Connection says it feels limited by its capacity, a number of things could be achieved if it showed any genuine concern for the conditions of workers."
10. River Island
"River Island's current belief, that its choice of good suppliers and sourcing countries is enough to ensure their code of conduct is implemented, leaves space for improvement."
11. Asda / George
"It is extremely disappointing that a company as large as Asda is still failing to seriously address an issue as important as wages and is falling well behind its closest competitors in regard to the quality of its work in this area."
12. Sainsbury's
"Sainsbury's has failed to supply any concrete information about its work. It appears to have been doing some data analysis and consultation and has become aware of union activity, which happens in their work force though it is unclear what this means in practice."
13. Laura Ashley
"Laura Ashley continues to use the minimum wage as a standard but seems to show some progress in recognising the insufficiency of this."
14. Debenhams
"Debenhams has used the Ethical Trading Initiative fig leaf for a number of years now and it does not really work. The company has an understanding of the issues and it should stop waiting around and start to implement new wage policies."
15. Matalan
"Matalan is clearly making more effort than before to respond to criticisms levelled against it in previous years. However, it has a long way to go to convince us that efforts are genuinely improving wages."
