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Did crying modern slavery in Leicester benefit the workers? [1]

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Date: 2024-03 

Removing those jobs without having replacement positions readily available made bad situations worse. During our research, we met ex-workers who had been pushed to the brink by unemployment, the lockdowns, and the cost-of-living crisis.

“We don’t have jobs and we don’t know what to do,” said one worker from India. “We have some savings, but how long are they going to last?”

Many were also relying on food banks because they could no longer afford groceries. “The queue outside the food bank in Leicester is mostly comprised of us garment workers," said another former garment worker from India. "We are ashamed but we have no other choice.”

Second, the crackdown affected people whose CVs weren’t attractive to the employers offering better conditions and better pay. They only had bad options, and their only choice, realistically, regarded the type of exploitation they preferred.

The garment industry in Leicester relied primarily on the labour of South Asian women migrant workers. More often than not, these workers spoke little English, had low educational attainment, and could only work part-time due to their childcare duties. Many had also incurred huge debts in order to migrate to the UK.

Few employers in Leicester other than the garment factories were willing to employ such workers. Thus once again, while the conditions may have been bad, having these jobs taken away with no ready replacement didn’t necessarily improve their lives. For some, it was the opposite of ‘rescue’ – akin to being pushed out of a damaged but still airborne plane without a parachute.

And for many of the workers, the reasons for being pushed were largely irrelevant. “I don't think the term modern slavery means anything to the workers,” said Jennifer Wascak, managing director of Justice in Fashion, a UK based community interest company. “Most of the time it's just a matter of, ‘how can I get what I need in order to survive?’”

Some ex-garment workers have found work in the food processing factories around Leicester. These jobs are also characterised by bad pay and working conditions. But, thanks to the closures, there aren’t enough posts for the number of people looking for work. A job centre employee told us that for every vacancy in a food processing factory, there are over 50 applications. Labour supply has outstripped the demand, exacerbating an already bad situation.

As a result, many workers complained of irregular employment, with some working only a few days in a month. Losing their exploitative job in the garment industry has negatively impacted these workers lives, which is not what should follow a crackdown on ‘modern slavery’.

A diversionary tactic

Finally, the crackdown from brands like Boohoo on their supplier factories helped hide brands’ role in creating the conditions for exploitation.

It’s a simple feint that labour researchers have observed all over the world. A factory is found to have poor conditions. Rather than taking responsibility for the violations, the brands giving that supplier contracts profess ignorance of what was happening. They then make a show of launching an investigation and expelling the rotten apple.

The image that emerges is of a generally good corporate citizen who was deceived, but who moved quickly to get its house back in order once it became aware of the problem.

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[1] Url: https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/beyond-trafficking-and-slavery/did-crying-modern-slavery-in-leicester-benefit-the-workers-fast-fashion-boohoo/

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