The Unsuitablog

Someone close to me was bought a t-shirt the other day. The person who bought it for her thought she was doing the right thing by buying one made from organic cotton, with a big fat “I Love Organic” printed on the front. The only problem was, that the t-shirt came from Asda, owned by WalMart, and purveyors of the cheapest supermarket clothes in the UK.

This is the company that advertise the 99p school shirt, the £2 skirt and the £15 suit. They say it’s ok because they buy cloth by the mile and pay “fair wages”. This is part of their Ethical Code:

We carry out 13,000 audits across the globe every year to make sure that the people who make clothes for us aren’t exploited in any way. With every single audit we carry out, amongst other things we check:

– That workers are paid the going rate for the country that they work in.
– That workers aren’t working too many hours.
– That working conditions are up to scratch.

Well, that’s sorted then. Bear in mind that “going rate” can mean as low as a few cents per day if that’s what the country of origin allows; that “too many hours” can mean up to 100 hours a week, if it is legal in that country; that “up to scratch” can mean something far worse than you would hope to work in, if it is legal in that country. In short, the statements aren’t worth the bytes they are written in.

I know this too, because as recently as 6 months ago, a report in The Guardian found Asda guilty of paying “wages were so low that, despite working up to 84-hour weeks, they struggled to provide for their families.” In addition, “there were also reports of physical and verbal abuse by supervisors and of workers being sacked for taking sick leave.”

So, it appears that Asda may love people wearing their heart on their sleeves, but when it comes to maintaining basic human rights – which are also a byword for environmental standards too – they most certainly keep things close to their chests.