GUANGZHOU – Workers stitching clothing for Shein are being paid just 3 pence per garment during gruelling 18-hour shifts. A reporter went undercover for the UK’s Channel 4 and filmed inside two Shein factories in China. The suppliers were producing clothing for the UK market.
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A programme that will air on Channel 4 this week will show there are no weekends for garment workers at the two Shein factories, and only one day off per month.
Workers are fined two thirds of their daily wage if they make a single mistake, breaking Shein’s code of conduct for suppliers as well as Chinese labour laws.
The Channel 4 reporter found women in one factory were found to be washing their hair during lunch breaks, as they have so little spare time outside of their long shifts. In one example of extensive working hours, the reporter observed a man who started work at 8a who was then filmed at his sewing machine after midnight.
Channel 4 will report that workers in the first factory are paid a base monthly salary of 4,000 yuan (£500) to make a minimum of 500 garments a day. They are paid an extra 2*p per item in commission if they do over time, which many of them do in order to earn a living wage.
This is not Shein’s first brush with controversy. Last year, an undercover exposé found suppliers of the brand had been seriously flouting labour laws, both in China and its logistics hub in Belgium. Chinese researchers working for Swiss advocacy group Public Eye went undercover at Shein suppliers in Guangzhou and found employees work for 11-12 hours a day with only one day off per month. This 75-hour week was found to be violating Shein’s Supplier Code of Conduct and Chinese labour law, on numerous counts.
Public Eye also spoke to Shein employees in Europe who complained of “Chinese standards” at the logistics centre in Liège in Belgium, where European returns were processed until recently. There, the most frequent cause of dismissal was failure to meet unrealistic performance targets.
Earlier this year it emerged that Shein has been aiming to raise US$1bn at a valuation of US$100bn according to Bloomberg. This figure looks high given the current economic climate, however. Moreover, even in the few short months since that announcement it would seem the ESG space has shifted and there is more and more concern about greenwashing and associated risk of brands being found to make misleading claims.
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