Students from Cardiff University took part in the labour movements on Queen Street on Friday 1 May to protest against reports of Topshop’s slave labour conditions.
People & Planet, the University’s student campaigning group, joined the anti-globalisation protest for International Labour Day to take action against branches of Topshop all over the UK.
Colourful demonstrations were held outside Topshop stores across the UK, including Edinburgh, Oxford, London, Manchester, Birmingham.
This was the largest student movement in the UK to have condemned Topshop’s recent announcement that they will be including a new range of ethical Fairtrade clothing. The movement objected because Topshop have refused to take serious action on the ‘slave labour conditions’, which a report from the Sunday Times has discovered in the rest of their supply chain.
The campaign group dressed as ‘fat cats’ to symbolise Topshop owner Philip Green’s lack of accountability and concern for workers.
Another aspect of the protest included urging people across Britain to phone Topshop’s customer services and ask them why they refuse to join the Ethical Trading Initiative.
The Sunday Times report in August 2007 revealed human rights abuses in the factories supplying Topshop, owned by Philip Green’s Arcadia Group, which questions Topshop’s commitment to ethical fashion.
Mr. Green has previously claimed that the company has changed its practises, but refuses to join the Ethical Trading Initiative in order to publicly verify these claims.
Jim Cranshaw, Trade Campaigner at People & Planet, said: “Philip Green’s deafening silence on the issue of the Ethical Trading Initiative suggests the company’s indifference to the labour rights abuses that are taking place throughout their supply chain.
Introducing a few Fairtrade clothing lines is commendable, but what about their otherwise awful record of engaging with supply chain ethics?”
Alice Hemming, Trade Justice Coordinator for Cardiff People & Planet, said: “It seems like this is an opportunistic attempt to hijack the lucrative ethics-conscious market and just ends up looking like a token gesture. By drawing the focus onto the new Fairtrade range, Topshop is further marginalising the exploited workers that produce the rest of their lines. We need to ensure consumers see through this kind of hypocritical ethics fraud.”
