Yahoo Finance 'Why are people buying boob tubes': fashion workers' anger at owners and consumers
Warehouse workers for the fast fashion brands Pretty Little Thing and Boo Hoo are begging consumers to stop ordering non-essential items such as £6 boob tubes and £8 false eyelashes after orders at one depot more than tripled in a week.
Morale is said to be “rock bottom” at Pretty Little Thing’s fulfilment centre in Tinsley, Sheffield, where workers doing 12-hour shifts said they were processing orders for 400,000 items this week, up from 120,000 in a “normal” week.
They also complain it is “practically impossible” for hundreds of staff on each shift to keep two metres apart and still meet their hourly targets of picking 80 items. They also clock on using an unhygienic fingerprint scanner, though Pretty Little Thing (PLT) says a staff member thoroughly wipes the equipment after every use.
Clive Betts, the local Labour MP, says he has received 32 complaints from PLT warehouse workers, more than for any other company during the government lockdown. He has written to the Health and Safety Executive to ask it and officers from Sheffield council to make an unannounced inspection to the site, near the Meadowhall shopping centre.
PLT and Boo Hoo – set up by the Manchester-based Kamani family, who the Sunday Times Rich List estimates as being worth £1.2bn – have both had 70%-off sales this week, a move described by workers as “totally irresponsible’’.
Umar Kamani, PLT’s founder, announced last week that he would be donating a month’s salary to small businesses in need. But warehouse workers in his own supply chain say he should think of them first, claiming they are risking their health and that of their families in order to fulfil a national addiction to fast fashion.
“I would say to [Umar Kamani], you do acts through altruism all through the world, paying people’s mortgages and what not, but you are sending people to work in Sheffield and putting their lives at risk,” said one worker, who like everyone interviewed asked to remain anonymous for fear of losing their job. “It’s just clothes. People can’t go out to pubs and clubs so why are they still ordering it and why are they selling it?”
Their partner, who works for the NHS, said: “Why are people buying boob tubes and glittery skirts during a global health crisis? You can wear your pyjamas for a virtual disco can’t you?”
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In response, PLT said: “The latest government guidance is clear, that all online retailers can and actually have been encouraged to keep trading to support the economy. We are very confident in the extensive social distancing and hygiene measures that we have in place to protect our team. We are keeping these under constant review and will not hesitate to make changes to continually improve safety.”
But another worker said: “I don’t understand why we are practically being forced to work when clothing retail is not exactly an essential service and it seems the company care more about profit than staff. They should take example from Next and River Island that have already closed their warehouses.”
One worker said huge sales had fuelled demand: “We’ve had 400,000 orders built up over the last week. Normally there are 120,000 at any one time, at most. Even at Christmas and New Year we wouldn’t have anything like that much.”
Each order contains on average 2.5 items, meaning workers have to rush around the 1.2m sq ft warehouse picking them for each consignment, sometimes clocking up 20 miles during a shift. Workers say the aisles are 4ft (1.2 metres) wide, meaning it is inevitable that they pass each other closely.
“The bosses tell us to keep two metres apart but they aren’t actually instructing anybody in how they are supposed to do that,” said one worker. “Then they have a go at people because they aren’t meeting their KPIs [key performance indicators]. Each picker is expected to pick 80 items an hour, but obviously if someone else is in the aisle they need and they wait until they come out, the KPIs go down.”
In a joint statement, PLT and Clipper Logistics, which runs the warehouse on behalf of the fashion firm, denied that any staff had been disciplined for failing to meet their targets and said they had rearranged the warehouse to make social distancing possible. “The extra measures we have put in place to keep our teams safe do have an impact on the speed that our teams can work and we recognise that this will be the case until things return to normal,” they said. They claimed a maximum of 275 people worked in the warehouse on any one shift, though the Guardian’s sources said that in busy periods that could increase to 400.
In addition, the lowest paid workers were told this week that instead of a planned pay rise of 35p an hour, which would have increased their hourly pay to £9, they would get just 15p extra. “Morale was already at rock bottom,” said one worker. Staff said it was “a joke” that they were being considered key workers.
Clipper Logistics has other warehouses for food companies and was this week contracted to build a new supply chain for NHS personal protective equipment (PPE) products. “They don’t have to furlough us. They could move us to another warehouse where we would actually be doing essential work,” said one staff member.
Boo Hoo, set up by Umar’s father, Mahmud, has a distribution centre in Burnley, Lancashire, which is also busier than ever, according to workers.
A warehouse operative said despite managers repeating distancing guidelines during morning briefings, the number of orders coming in meant workers could not adhere to them.
“You’ve got to understand the amount of stock we’re dealing with. We’re getting thousands of cartons coming in every day,” they said.
This was denied by Boo Hoo, who said: “The Burnley site is around 2m sq ft and actually, with a maximum of around 450 working at any one time over two sites and significant automation on site, [it makes it] very easy to practise social distancing.”
Boo Hoo and PLT defended their current 70%-off sales, saying: “Discounting and promotional offers are a normal part of our marketing strategy and we react and respond to the needs of our customers. We will continue to operate in accordance with government guidelines, whilst we can keep our colleagues safe and we are permitted to do so, in doing so we are able to protect jobs and contribute to the economy.”
