Boohoos letter will make changes in the industry19 Jul 2020 09:13
Because if you look back its actually the government and enforcement agencies that arent doing their job here, for anyone unsure of investing read up on the facts from 2018 https://www.ft.com/content/e427327e-5892-11e8-b8b2-d6ceb45fa9d0
In a nutshell
The enforcement agencies can hardly claim to be unaware of what is happening. Representatives from UK Visas and Immigration, the Health & Safety Executive (HSE) and the Gangmasters and Labour Abuse Authority all attended a meeting hosted by Leicester mayor Sir Peter Soulsby last October, where the problems were discussed in detail. But a comb through freedom-of-information requests, MPs questions and public records does not reveal a state that has done much to sort this out.
Over the five years to 2016-17, HM Revenue & Customs, which has recently had its enforcement budget doubled, has identified about £33m of arrears for almost 232,000 people who have been paid under minimum wage nationwide. Of that total, it found underpayment in just 19 employers in the textile sector, owing £44,371 to 83 workers. A government spokesperson said: “Short-changing workers is a red line for this government and employers who cross it will have to pay back every penny and could face fines of up to twice the wages owed.”
HSE, meanwhile, was told by the government in 2011 to cut the number of proactive workplace inspections it makes by one-third. In 2012, Chris Grayling, then employment minister, said: “If we try to legislate out all risk, we will lose jobs to other places.” For textiles manufacturing, the enforcement approach has been “principally reactive”. There were 187 inspections of garment and textile factories last year, an increase on 103 inspections five years ago. But there were 136 workplace injuries reported in the sector last year — reportable injuries are those that necessitate more than a week off work or involve damage such as amputations, the crushing of internal organs or burns covering more than 10 per cent of the body. HSE investigated just five.
A spokesperson said the criteria for when HSE would investigate a reported injury included “prima facie evidence of a serious breach of the law”, and that the agency still inspected businesses in “non-higher-risk” sectors if there was evidence of poor health-and-safety risk control. Boohoo confirmed it was not a member of the ETI but said its ethical trade policy was “based on the ETI base code, which sets out worldwide standards of labour practice”. Boohoo’s Paul Horsfield said it used the Sedex Members Ethical Trade Audit
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