Poundland

Janiceatkins

I told my daughter I was going to Poundland and she was horrified, she asked me if I had read the ST articles about the boy of 7 working a 98 hour week for 7p an hour. I read the article and was horrified too. I now feel torn about shopping there.

What do others think? I have always tried to be 'savvy' about shopping but now feel I have been naive about such cheap prices and how they are sourced.
Jan

Janiceatkins

Sorry forgot to say apologies if this has been mentioned before, it was last weeks ST. Jan.

Trow

The quote from the spokesperson is: "Poundland does not tolerate child labour under any circum!stances and will not work with companies that employ children"

So this should not be standard for the products you can buy there.

absolutebounder

Trow wrote: »

The quote from the spokesperson is: "Poundland does not tolerate child labour under any circum!stances and will not work with companies that employ children"

So this should not be standard for the products you can buy there.

:rotfl::rotfl::rotfl::rotfl::rotfl::rotfl::rotfl::rotfl::rotfl::rotfl:

Farway

Regardless of company [except maybe Waitrose / Co-op] I normally assume all cheap products are either achieved by explotation or cruelty to animals in some form

Thus I buy Fairtrade / organic / UK sourced, but in case of manufactured items it really is not easy to avoid explotation, even the big brands, like Nike etc have been found wanting in this regard

There is no easy answer to this problem

meritaten

Its a bit of a bu99er isnt it? you CANNOT be sure that any large company isnt exploiting workers including children, sometimes without being aware of it! we all like our bargains and unless ALL overseas manufacturers have a company rep onsite then unscrupulous managers or owners will exploit people to raise profits.
Of course you can buy fair trade etc, but if we all did that then other companies would go out of business causing even more hardship. on balance I think if we spend a certain amount on fair trade and ethical products we can do little more than trust the companies and if we DO find they are exploiting workers then to boycott them!
btw, its not just overseas where workers are exploited - it happens in this country perfectly legally. those factories who employ home workers are notorious for this. for eg, I saw an ad in a local paper for christmas cracker homeworkers and phoned for more details. I was told that the pay was a penny a cracker to start, and when i got really good and could assemble at least sixty crackers an hour I could then go on to the luxury crackers which paid two pence per cracker! I burst out laughing and said no way was I working for sixty pence an hour rising to £1.20! and this was only about 3 years ago.
think about that when you buy your made in britain crackers for a massive twenty pounds a box of six!

The_Thrilla

This is a difficult one. The argument brought forward in defence is that you are developing that country's capitalism, and eventually the "slaves" - because that is essentually what they are - will free themselves and will form themselves into BIG Labour and get better rights for themselves. I have a certain amount of sympathy for that argument. Nevertheless, in the mean season, people - some of them children - live miserable lives working dawn till dusk for about 20p an hour.

What I can tell you is that most countries in the Far East have labour laws that, on the face of it, are quite acceptable, and are on a par with the laws in Western Europe. The trouble is that these laws are never enforced. So when a chain of stores tell you that they only deal with firms that follow the local laws, you need not believe them. As I've said, these local labour laws are seldom enforced, and everybody knows it, including the chain stores.

paulwf

meritaten wrote: »

btw, its not just overseas where workers are exploited - it happens in this country perfectly legally. those factories who employ home workers are notorious for this. for eg, I saw an ad in a local paper for christmas cracker homeworkers and phoned for more details. I was told that the pay was a penny a cracker to start, and when i got really good and could assemble at least sixty crackers an hour I could then go on to the luxury crackers which paid two pence per cracker! I burst out laughing and said no way was I working for sixty pence an hour rising to £1.20! and this was only about 3 years ago.
think about that when you buy your made in britain crackers for a massive twenty pounds a box of six!

That actually isn't legal. Although self employed the person doing home assembly would still be given "worker" status which means they still have some rights, but not the full rights of an employee. They would be entitled to national minimum wage. In this case the "fair piece rate" rule would apply, which is where the average earned by all workers is 20% above NMW so that if workers are slightly slower they still reach the threshold (if they are really slow they won't get it but a margin of 20% is deemed acceptable).

The first problem is NMW compliance officers don't seem that interested. The second problem is as the rate relies on an average you'd need to be able to track down several home workers and look at their rates. By the time you'd get enough people to complain and analyse their rates all the crackers would be packed! But still, for major violations of NMW there is in theory some protection.

meritaten

you are right paulwf, but unless companies are forced to comply with the minimum wage law then british homeworkers will continue to be exploited. the reason some people will be happy with this rate of pay is that some of them will have the kids actually doing the work for them when they come home from school or during the holidays. and if this isnt child exploitation I dont know what is! and by their own parents! I knew one couple up the street who worked for local company packing wrapping paper (and you have seen thier products in Tesco, WH Smiths and other well known stores who would deny that they KNEW the manufacturer was exploiting workers!). and the kids (four or five I think under the age of 12 all spent at least a couple of hours a night packing these things) until social services found out, then the parents had to do it themselves and they soon gave that up!

paulwf

The whole issue of sweatshops is a tricky one as a brand/company will outsource to a whole host of companies and they will in turn outsource for components. There isn't always a link between retail price and factory conditions.

To illustrate the price/conditions issue just look at the recent news reports on Foxconn which makes the iPhone in China...this is a very expensive item with a high profit margin yet Foxconn has been linked to very poor wages and working conditions resulting in many employee suicides this year. Designer brands don't always have a good record (Nike is a classic example) although I'm sure there is some link between price and conditions...if jeans are retailing for £5 (inc VAT) in supermarkets there is no way they can be paying their machinists £6 an hour!

The problem with outsourcing is a large clothing company like M&S might easily use over 100 clothing suppliers. Those companies will in turn outsource for fabric and other parts so it is very difficult to judge any one brand.

We also mustn't forget that the food industry is a massive employer of sweatshop labour, it is no good buying ethical clothing then eating cheap food produced overseas in terrible conditions.

There are plenty of smaller clothing companies out there who build genuine relationships with their factories and have good ethics, and because they tend not to be publicly listed companies they are content to make a fair profit and not have to maximise profits at absolutely any expense.

Part of the solution may be to buy from the smaller more ethical companies and be prepared to pay a bit more...instead of the Primark mentality of buying lots of cheap disposable cutting edge fashion buying less but longer lasting garments and being prepared to use OS skills to repair them could help.

paulwf

meritaten wrote: »

you are right paulwf, but unless companies are forced to comply with the minimum wage law then british homeworkers will continue to be exploited. the reason some people will be happy with this rate of pay is that some of them will have the kids actually doing the work for them when they come home from school or during the holidays. and if this isnt child exploitation I dont know what is! and by their own parents! I knew one couple up the street who worked for local company packing wrapping paper (and you have seen thier products in Tesco, WH Smiths and other well known stores who would deny that they KNEW the manufacturer was exploiting workers!). and the kids (four or five I think under the age of 12 all spent at least a couple of hours a night packing these things) until social services found out, then the parents had to do it themselves and they soon gave that up!

I totally agree with you. My disagreement was with your original post stating that it is perfectly legal. It isn't - turning a blind eye to the law is different to it being legal was the point I was trying to make.