UK MP’s consider legislation to force employers to pay a ‘living wage’

A group of MP’s is calling on the government to introduce legislation to force UK companies to pay their overseas staff a ‘living wage’ and give them employment rights and protection. The MP’s want UK firms to offer their staff around the world the same kind of rights UK workers are accustomed to. This follows a report by the Guardian that highlighted the working conditions at factories in Bangladesh that make products for Asda, Primark and Tesco. Some of the workers earn as little as 4p an hour and are forced to work up to 80 hours a week. The workers reported instances of abuse by supervisors and sackings for being off work when sick.

These kinds of practices are outlawed in the UK, yet UK companies allow their suppliers to use such exploitative practices that they border on slavery. The government and retailers point to the Ethical Trade Initiative, which is a voluntary code of practice with guidelines of 48 hour working weeks, maximum 12 hours overtime and a living wage, but this is clearly not working.

I know retailers are in competition, and at the lower end of the market, price is the main attraction for shoppers, but at what cost to the people that make the products?
We in the UK and the rest of the developed world can afford to pay a fair price for everything we buy. We do not really need to exploit the world’s poorest people so we can save a few pennies on a pair of jeans. At the higher end of the market, where clothes can be extortionately expensive, is it really necessary to exploit the workers? When a pair of jeans can cost over £100, is it right to pay the workers something like 10p an hour?

Like many of the government’s voluntary codes pf practice introduced to allow companies to self-regulate, they simply do not work. It should be pretty obvious to anyone that in a commercial organisation the primary motivator is making as much profit as possible. Workers’ rights, especially workers that are beyond UK law, are an irrelevance. Surely the only reason UK companies outsource work to third world countries is the low production costs involved, one factor of which is the low wages they pay the workers. The only way workers’ rights can be improved is through government action and legislation to ensure UK companies apply the same rules to workers abroad as they do in the UK. Ideally there need to be legal minimum standards for all workers that are applied across the world.

[Via The Guardian]

Advocates For Animals takes on Tesco

Why is it that animals are loved by most people, yet their suffering is tolerated by the majority? We all recoil at the RSPCA adverts on the television that show cats and dogs in awful states, yet how many of us think about the farm animals that are kept in the most torturous conditions? When people tuck into their breakfast eggs and bacon do they think about the suffering of the animals they are eating? Advocates for Animals is one of Britain’s leading animal protection organisations and provides a voice for animals. They campaign against animal cruelty in all its nasty, horrid forms.

Which brings me unfortunately onto the topic of battery hens. We all know how cruel the treatment of chickens is on factory farms, yet supermarkets still support the practise of keeping chickens in tiny cages with barely room to move. One of Tesco’s egg suppliers has been exposed by Advocates for Animals for keeping up to eight chickens in wire cages that are legally only permitted to hold a maximum of five. It is bad enough that chickens are kept in cages for their entire life, unable to stand up properly or to stretch their wings or legs, but to cram even more into these tiny cages is criminal.

Advocates for Animals has launched its ‘Go Cage-Free’ campaign to try to persuade Tesco to stop selling eggs from caged hens. The campaign will focus on educating the public about the plight of caged hens and visiting Tesco stores in 16 towns to spread their message.

The supermarkets have the buying power to dictate to farmers how they treat their livestock. It is about time supermarkets used their clout to ensure that all farmers they deal with treat their livestock with humanity and stop the barbaric practises of factory farming. If supermarkets are unsure about this issue, maybe we can help them to decide by not buying eggs from caged hens. The supermarkets depend on us for their profits, so if we spend our money ethically, they will have to change their policies. We can make the difference!

Tesco accused of exploiting workers in South Africa

Famous actress Emma Thompson has accused Tesco of subjecting some of their workers in South Africa to appalling pay and conditions. Ms Thompson, who is an ambassador for the charity ActionAid said “I have visited these farms and I was shocked by what I saw” after her tour of farms in the Western Cape area of South Africa. Thompson claimed that 80 women worked from 7am to 6pm for the equivalent of just 38p.

Tesco’s media director, Jonathan Church denied her claims, and said “We have looked at the farm conditions and pay, gone over the allegations made and not found any evidence to suggest there is a problem”. I’m sure the media director sat in his plush offices in the UK really knows more about the situation on South African farms than Emma Thompson who has actually been there and seen the situation for herself.

It is about time corporations took responsibility for their suppliers’ actions and set up a validation process that involves independent assessment of working conditions around the world. Being ethical needs to be more than a marketing strategy, it needs to be a moral code that corporations follow.

[Via The Telegraph]