Report produced by the UK CCC (Labour Behind the Label) that details how major British retailers lack any coherent strategy to ensure a living wage for the people who make their clothes.

Many of the biggest brands have publicly accepted that garment workers' wages need to increase. But no company is yet paying workers a living wage. Let's Clean up Fashion 2009 looks into why and surveys the state of pay on the UK high street.

This fourth Let’s Clean up Fashion report documents the scandalous truth on wages: the majority of workers in the global fashion industry rarely earn more than two dollars a day in an industry worth over £36 billion a year in the UK alone. Many have to work excessive hours just to get this meagre amount and have no possibility to earn wages needed to properly feed, clothe, house and educate their families.

While many of the biggest brands and retailers on the UK high street acknowledge that garment workers’ wages need to increase and claim to have started work to eliminate poverty wages from their supply chains few of the projects and plans developed in corporate offices in Europe or North America have had a tangible impact on the wages and lives of the men and women producing our clothes.

In addition to providing detailed information on brands and retailers in the UK market, Let’s Clean Up Fashion 2009 also reports on the Asia Floor Wage initiative, which launched in October 2009. This Asia-wide campaign with global resonance, rejects the idea that governments, unions and workers in different countries should be forced to choose between unemployment or exploitation. Instead this initiative involving trade unions, NGOs and activists from six garment producing countries to negotiate and agree a way to calculate a figure for a ‘floor wage’ – a minimum amount below which no worker, regardless of nationality, gender or workplace, should be paid.

Download the report: http://www.labourbehindthelabel.org/images/pdf/letscleanupfashion2009.pdf