Fast Fashion and Coronavirus: A Feminist Issue

Photo: Fashion Revolution

This is a guest blog post by sustainable fashion blogger Emily Kemp

Coronavirus has exposed fast fashion’s negligence of women’s rights.

For years, the fast fashion industry has masqueraded as feminist. Brands promoting ‘female empowerment’ values and mass-producing feminist slogans on £3 t-shirts have hoodwinked the high street. 

But the industry’s ‘feminist’ values exist alongside a striking lack of supply chain transparency and their disturbing denial of a living wage for factory workers – 80% of whom are women.

The coronavirus pandemic has only exacerbated these issues. Like all global disasters, those hit the hardest are vulnerable groups, such as:

·  women
·  people living in poverty
·  the chronically sick
·  elderly people 

This crisis has revealed what the ethical fashion community has always known about the fashion supply chain's systematic ethical issues, and combined with the widespread public health crisis, millions of women's health, safety and livelihoods are in danger.

Health risks for women in the supply chain

Here in the UK, coronavirus has exposed the true extent of fast fashion brand Boohoo’s unethical practices. The group has forced warehouse staff to continue working through the pandemic, selling fashion facemasks for £5 while being unable to provide sufficient protective equipment to their employees.

Boohoo’s much-criticised £5 face masks. They were later removed from its website

Photo: Boohoo

Worryingly, Manchester-based fast fashion titan Pretty Little Thing has also kept its Tinsley warehouse in operation, despite the environment being unable to support safe social distancing measures. One worker described ‘4ft wide aisles’ where up to ten staff work at a time, adding that sanitizer dispensers are ‘always empty’.

Similarly, powerhouse ASOS has kept their South Yorkshire factory open, with national press reporting the brand is ‘playing Russian Roulette’ with worker’s lives.

Further afield, in Italy, garment workers at an H&M warehouse haven’t been able to access PPE. When they protested against this, their wages were cut by an hour on their March payslips.

And in Myanmar, 520 unionised garment workers have been permanently fired by Yangon-based factory Myan Mode, the owners blaming a decline in orders due to coronavirus. However, 700 of the predominantly-female employee base remain in work, and none of them belong to a union. 

This is a clear case of union busting, and not only is it negligent of worker’s rights in general, but more specifically of women’s rights: namely the right to work and the right to fair wages.

Even in a global pandemic, fast fashion is putting profits before people.

An H&M factory stands empty

Photo: BBC

Women’s livelihoods

There’s been a lot in the news about major high street brands that have cancelled their supply chain orders (some have halted up to a month’s worth of typical exports), leaving factory owners unable to pay their staff.

This has meant workers are being denied pay for work that they’ve already done.

Because of such unethical decisions, countless women are out of work – unable to pay bills, feed themselves and their families. It’s estimated that a million women have lost their garment jobs in Pakistan alone.

The cruel irony of this is that these actions aren’t depriving garment workers of decent wages: they were being paid poverty-level wages long before this pandemic began. By brands cancelling orders due to the virus, they’re only driving already-impoverished women into further destitution.

How can fast fashion brands get away without paying? 

Protective laws aren’t in place, meaning that, during the pandemic, some brands can avoid obligations to pay suppliers. Contracts that accompany purchase orders are a notable example. These contracts often include a force majeure – or ‘act of God’ ­– clause. 

This clause means brands escape liability for natural and unavoidable catastrophes that interrupt the expected cause of events, such as a hurricane or armed conflict (or, say, a global pandemic). 

While this clause may protect a brand from financial difficulties, it does absolutely nothing to protect its workers from deprivation – and that’s simply not good enough.

#PayUp Campaign

In response to brands’ unethical choices to leave workers stranded, the non-profit organisation Remake started the #PayUp campaign. They campaign for human rights and climate justice in the fashion industry, and they’ve launched a petition demanding brands pay the full amount for in-production or cancelled orders. 

Remake are calling on 17 brands, including Primark and Gap, to pay up and save lives. By doing so, brands will ensure the women who have quietly kept their business afloat for decades won’t starve or become homeless during the pandemic. 

So far 13 brands including Zara and Marks & Spencer have promised to pay up, but many remain conspicuously quiet. 

Some Bangladesh factories have already reopened despite lockdown orders

Photo: The Economic Times

Women’s safety

For many dismissed or temporarily suspended garment workers, time ordinarily spent at work will revert to time spent in unsafe environments. Whether this is an explosive household or a polluted street, these dangerous spaces put women at greater risk of gender-based violence.

The Center for Global Workers’ Rights published a research report on the impact of coronavirus on garment workers in Bangladesh, finding that 80.4% of permanently dismissed workers were sent home without any severance pay. This was undoubtedly infuriated by the fact that 97% of brands refused to contribute to severance pay. 

In Bangladesh, where the clothing industry counts for 80% of the country’s exports, gender-based violence is one of the most pervasive forms of human rights violations against women. Here, female garment workers are commonly a family’s sole wage earner, supporting a husband and children on a single poverty wage.

 This makes it impossible to amass any real savings.

Job loss and salary suspension could force millions of workers to turn to alternative sources of income. In desperation, women may enter occupations that have little to no employment laws, such as casual labour, entertainment and sex work. 

Alternatively, they could be required to return to work. Some Bangladesh factories have defied lockdown orders and reopened, putting their workers in stark danger of infection and potentially triggering a national surge in cases.

Right now, with no legal or financial protection, the fashion industry’s most vulnerable women face a considerable threat of illness and violence.

The future

It’s difficult to imagine the sheer scale of garment workers whose lives will be changed by coronavirus. Each worker has her own story, her own family and livelihood – all of which will be victim to this disaster long after the pandemic subsides.

Despite fast fashion’s alarming lack of positive action in the face of coronavirus, there are things you can do to help.

Labour Behind the Label has a relief fund that supports garment workers during coronavirus, to which you can donate here.

Alternatively, you can visit Clean Clothes Campaign and find out how to take action in other ways: writing to brands, demanding accountability, or by simply asking questions.

Brands refusing to take responsibility for the health and wellbeing of women in their supply chains are profoundly anti-feminist. But organisations like Remake are holding them accountable, and by signing the #PayUp petition, you can too.

Feminist fashion looks like something very different to the fast fashion system of negligence and immorality that’s become ingrained in society today. Instead of shirking ethical obligations and sidestepping legalities, a truly feminist brand is one that prioritises women’s rights, pays its workers fair wages and pays up on its production pledges  – and all without being pressured to do so.