On Christmas eve, 24th December, Thursday, it emerged that fast-fashion king Boohoo have cut off their ties with over 60 suppliers in Leicester. These reports emerge after long-standing investigations, concerns and controversy that Boohoo employed or engaged with suppliers who underpaid their staff whilst employing them in poor working conditions.
In a recent development, the company executives have established details of their plans for a “huge” new Leicester factory. Earlier, Boohoo’s operations director Andrew Reaney told the House of Commons Environmental Audit Committee that the company had cut ties with 64 suppliers in the city while re-enforcing their commitment to Leicester with a new factory in Thurmaston Lane.
According to Leicester Mercury, Mr Reaney said, “At this point, we have applied for planning permission. The factory itself will be huge. We are talking about potentially 60 machinists, which is equivalent to 85, 90 workers. That is 90 more jobs in Leicester, and we are going to move our own sourcing and ethical and technical compliance team into the same building as well. That is part of our commitment to Leicester and part of us wanting to demonstrate to the industry that this is what a model for best practice looks like.”
The Government’s director of Labour Market Enforcement Matthew Taylor updated the committee on the Leicester situation and how national agencies and the city council were seeking to deal with problems.
He said, “There has not historically been a very high number of complaints emerging from Leicester.
“The critical issue for Leicester City Council which I think it is seeking to address now, is a long-term development of relationships with the communities of owners, and particularly of workers, to build trust and confidence so that people feel more able to report concerns, to blow the whistle, not to be as worried as they may be now about the consequences of doing that. That is a long-term shift.”
There are also reports of tax dodging, welfare fraud, counterfeiting, and perhaps, people smuggling.
“We are talking strong organised crime here. In the middle, the largest group - and this is what you heard about in our last session - are businesses working absolutely at the margins and to maintain a profit they have to work at the absolute minimum, the bare legal minimum of what is required of them.
“What I think happens for those businesses is that often they end up non-complying, not because it is deliberate but because it is what goes with the kinds of market pressures that they are under.”
