I wrote to Asda/George over a month ago and have had no reponse from them, pretty awful considering they are such a large company, you’d think they’d ahve a standard response to issue at the very least. Clearly they are not placing a priority on ethical trade nor workers rights.
Here is an excerpt from my letter to them:
I am intrigued by a paragraph in your ethical policy where you write “So how can we bring you such great value? Well there’s one big difference between us and
the rest of the high street, many of whom share the same factories as us – we are not greedy when it comes to profit margins.” I would suggest that you should be perhaps more greedy so that you are able to contribute more to your workers and their communities. How about charging more for your school uniforms in aid of building a school?
I would be very grateful if you could answer some questions I have about how you treat your workers in developing economies.
In which countries do you have factories that produce your clothes?
What percentage of the retail price of a garment goes to the worker who made it?
How do you determine how much to pay workers?
Do your workers have a contract with you and know that they can rely on a steady level of income?
Do you pay your workers in cash or through a bank; do they have the opportunity to save money in a bank account that earns interest?
About cotton: Are you able to determine the conditions and pay that workers in the cotton factories are given? How about the cotton pickers?
Does Asda/George have its own factories and how often do you visit them and that of your sub-contractors?
Asda/George are part of the Ethical Trading Initiative and they have an ethical code of conduct on their website, however I think it is all lip service, they are just ticking the boxes so as not too look too bad. I suspect they are not a responsible company and ultimately all their decisions are driven by profit – sorry Asda, it’s just the image you project – change it if you really care!
So Asda/George are now on my blacklist, I will not be buying any more clothes from them as I can not be certain that they are produced ethically. (My mother-in-law works for Asda so I expect my children will still be given clothes bought from Asda, as she gets a discount – do you think I should go so far as to refuse them?)
