News Brief

The charity War on Want and celebrities will seek public support today (18 September) for the biggest-ever call for British government action to stop fashion retailers exploiting overseas workers.

Some churches are also expected to back the campaign, although the Church of England is seeking to profit through its investments in one of the companies targeted by the campaign.

As London Fashion Week opens, War on Want will unveil its new drive for 50,000 names demanding that UK prime minister Gordon Brown regulates the industry.

The initiative will be backed by Jo Wood, the former wife of Rolling Stones guitarist Ronnie Wood, hours before viewers see her debut when the BBC series Strictly Come Dancing returns to Britain’s television screens.

The Love Fashion Hate Sweatshops push is also endorsed by pop singer Little Boots, actors Gael Garcia Bernal and Ashlee Jensen and designer Betty Jackson, who stages her own catwalk show at Somerset House in London on Sunday (20 September).

Among other backers are television personality Tony Robinson, actor-playwright Kwame Kwei-Armah, comedians Jo Brand and Francesca Martinez and gardener Bob Flowerdew.

Supportive public figures include Jack Dromey, deputy General Secretary of Unite, the UK’s largest trade union, Mary Turner, president of the GMB union, Queen’s Counsel Michael Mansfield, the leading human rights lawyer, human rights campaigner Peter Tatchell, journalist John Pilger and cartoonist Martin Rowson.

Ruth Tanner, campaigns and policy director at War on Want, said: “We want exploitation-free fashion which makes us look good without feeling bad. This campaign gives people a chance to make a real difference to the lives of workers who produce our clothes. Now is the time for the government to take action.”

Models in campaign T-shirts and carrying Love Fashion Hate Sweatshops placards will launch the drive on a red carpet at Somerset House minutes before the first catwalk show opens there as the curtain raiser to London Fashion Week.

Stacey Dooley, a campaigner against clothes sweatshops since her appearance in the television series Blood, Sweat and T-Shirts, will attend to support the launch.

In the series, she lived and worked alongside people in India who were making clothes for UK high street retailers.

According to War on Want research, workers making clothes for Primark, Tesco and Asda factories in the Bangladeshi capital Dhaka, received on average only £19.16 (2280 taka) a month, under half a living wage. Some employees were paid only the minimum wage, £13.97 (1663 taka) a month, far less than the £44.82 (5333 taka) needed to escape dire hardship.

The Church of England is seeking to profit from a investment in Tesco worth £27.5 million, according to its latest annual report.

The vast majority of employees in Bangladesh live in small, crowded shacks, many of which lack plumbing and adequate washing facilities. Though forced overtime is illegal in Bangladesh, employees said they were made to toil extra hours, often unpaid. Workers complained that in the fast fashion rush to produce the latest styles, many of them suffered verbal and physical abuse as they struggled to meet unrealistic targets. Yet the Dhaka workers said none of their factories was unionised.

Lina earns just £16 (1850 taka) a month, toiling 12 hours a day producing Tesco clothes. “It is not enough,” she said. “I can only afford to live in one room with my husband, two-year-old boy and mother-in-law.”

Ifat, who toils in a factory supplying Primark, Tesco and Asda, said: “I can’t feed my children three meals a day.”

Jo Wood, shocked by garment workers’ hardship when she visited Dhaka with a further LFHS backer, fair trade fashion company People Tree, said: "The conditions that they lived in in the slums were appalling: the rubbish, the smell and the poverty. Up to six people live in a tin room on bamboo stilts above heaps of rubbish. Yet I was humbled by the people and their attitudes."

Jack Dromey said: “ [The}global economic crisis threatens the most vulnerable, with a race to the bottom. But shoppers in British high streets will not accept modern day slavery in sweatshops producing cheap clothes. Reputable retailers should insist on high standards. Rogue retailers will be exposed if they try to take advantage.”

Another supporter, Livia Firth, founder of ethical retailer Eco Age, said: “I love fashion and am trying my best to wear only garments from designers who are sweatshop free. I hope this campaign will encourage both consumers like me and designers and producers to always make sure that what we wear comes from a chain of production which is 100 per cent fair.”