Due to the pandemic, working conditions in the fashion industry have gone from severely uncomfortable to downright deadly.
Since lockdown began on the 20th of March, the government has advised that everyone should stay 2 metres away from each other and self isolate if symptoms arise, yet for ASOS workers in South Yorkshire, this is simply not an option. They risk losing their jobs if they stay at home, but risk catching the virus if they go to work; no one should have to decide between their job and their health. Of roughly 500 workers interviewed at the Grimethorpe site in Barnsley, 98% felt unsafe at work amid the Coronavirus crisis, with one worker saying: “It’ll be like a domino effect, if one gets it, we’ll all get it and people will lose their lives”.
Further back in the supply chain, the problem persists, as over 1 million Bangladeshi garment workers have lost their jobs or been sent home penniless, due to fast fashion brands cancelling orders. When the lockdown first came into play, the fashion industry plummeted, as shopping sprees were halted. This resulted in brands cancelling £1.4 billion worth of orders and suspending £1 billion to equate to the dip in sales. £1.3 billion worth of these orders were either in production or completed products, leaving factory owners in debt, garment workers destitute and hundreds of millions of garments incinerated or discarded in landfill.
We must demand brands do better:
Sign the PayUp petition at change.org
Write an email to the brands that have refused to pay up via https://action.traidcraft.org.uk/fast-fashion-crisis-take-action or structure your own email.
Written by Sophie Farrar
Media by Ben Hyland
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