The Pressure of COVID-19 on Fast Fashion

By Meg Groom
August 2020

As Megan outlined in ‘Clothes, Gender, and the Climate’, the fashion industry has exploited workers for decades and is the second most polluting industry in the world. It was then inevitable that as COVID-19 spread across the globe the estimated 60 million, mostly female, employees would further have their rights stripped.

Tansy Hoskins described the COVID-19 virus nothing short of an existential threat to the global south’s garment industry. However, garment factories are not confined to the global south, the Clean Clothes Campaign reported on workers affected by the pandemic in India, Myanmar, South Africa, Ukraine, Bangladesh, Albania, Pakistan, Poland and Macedonia- to list a few countries from a short read of their live-blog. Leicester has also been in the news, as abuse of its garment workers reached new lows during the UK lockdown. Similar to a pandemic, the decades of poverty pay and poor working conditions also affects wide geographic areas where many are not immune to its symptoms. These conditions have left garment workers with no savings, in precarious living situations, and therefore vulnerable to the COVID-19 virus and its fallout.

A Three-Phase Crisis

In March, a report from the Centre of Global Workers’ Rights described the situation as a three-phase crisis: a crisis of raw materials procurement, a crisis of delayed payments, and a crisis of cancelled orders. As Wuhan and surrounding provinces were forced to lockdown, shipments of fabrics from China were delayed. Over 90% of the suppliers surveyed in Bangladesh reported delays in shipments from China, of which over half were penalised by buyers for late completion of orders. The second phase is characterised by delayed payments for completed orders, nearly 70% of suppliers reported delayed payments of more than 10 days from their buyers. The final phase evolved in mid-March as buyers began cancelling future, in-progress, and in some cases completed orders. As of July, an estimated $3.7 billion worth of garment orders from Bangladesh had been cancelled. The power imbalances in the garment industry supply chain means that it is difficult for suppliers to resist unfair practices, such as forced labour or debt bondage, when placed under such financial strains. Both the suppliers and the workers are vulnerable in this crisis.

The People

In addition to the financial pressures, the estimated 60 million garment workers worldwide are also vulnerable to exploitation based on their gender and nationality. Most workers are female and many are migrants. Women in India struggled with childcare, as schools closed and factories remained open. Access to reliable information about the virus was obstructed by insufficient information in the languages spoken by migrant workers. Sri Lanka’s Katunakye Free Zone was place under lockdown, stranding around 10,000 workers living in dormitories in cramped conditions, with no access to healthcare and inadequate food supplies. Most of the stranded workers were female migrants from rural areas, many with their children. The Bangladesh Center for Workers’ Solidarity is reporting the selective dismissal of union leaders, union members, and pregnant women. Manufacturers are using the financial strain as an opportunity to undermine the workers’ rights movement. There are also reports of union busting in Myanmar. In Leicester, a recent report identified that workers are vulnerable to exploitation because of their language skills, integration into the community and immigration status. Some accounts revealed that COVID-19 positive workers were forced to work, to fulfil online sales demand during lockdown. Others exposed that some garment factories were operating at 100% capacity prior to the UK lockdown on business reopening. As Labour Behind The Label say, “coronavirus has exposed the deep injustices and inequalities in the garment industry’’.

The issue remains the same as prior to the pandemic, COVID-19 has only exacerbated what already existed: the over consumption of fast fashion is bad for people and the planet. We must slow down.

You can read more about the effect of the pandemic on the garment industry via the Clean Clothes Campaign blog, or by listening to the Fashion Critical podcast.

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