Online clothing retailer Boohoo is making workers at one of its UK warehouses work in grueling and unhealthy conditions, a Times article said on Wednesday, two years after similar allegations were made. According to a journalist for the newspaper who worked undercover for a month, employees at the Burnley (north-west England) warehouse have to pick up 130 items per hour by walking a lot.
The reporter says that he walked about 20 kilometers on foot without a break to sit down during an 11-hour work session, and still only achieved 70% of his goals. The temperature in the warehouse frequently reached 32 degrees at night during the summer, he reports. Boohoo says he employs more than 5,000 people worldwide, according to his website.
“Prison,” “slaves,” “don’t work there,” reads graffiti in the warehouse, photographed and printed in the newspaper’s article. Times, which also describes many stays in the emergency room of employees, fainting, etc. Consequence: the staff turnover rate is high. Employees receive their instructions and the location of the items through a bulky black terminal attached to their wrist, thanks to which they are also monitored by their superiors, continues the article in the British newspaper. An employee says he almost ran over his boss with his cart as he was spinning while trying to accomplish his goals.
low paid workers
Missed goals could lead to dismissal, according to the newspaper. The chief executive of Boohoo, who has partnered with reality star Kourtney Kardashian, has been given a £1.3m bonus, while employees are paid £11 an hour, reports the Times. Two years ago, Boohoo had already been accused of selling clothes made in Pakistan but also in the center of the United Kingdom, in Leicester, by low-paid workers.
The “fast fashion” group, which had vowed to end the practices, had also been forced by a regulator to remove ads deemed sexist. Contacted by AFP on Wednesday, a Boohoo spokesman believes the article in Times “does not reflect the actual working environment in our Burnley warehouse.” At £11 an hour, he points out, wages are above the so-called living wage, which is not required but recommended in the UK. The share price has divided by almost ten in two years and was trading at 37.62 pence on Wednesday around 10:30 GMT, down 3%.
Source: BFM TV
