Clean Clothes Campaign has urged brands to support suppliers to make sure that workers have safe workplaces and transport including safe distancing between employees and the provision of protective equipment which workers’ reports reveal is not the case.

A shocking investigation from Clean Clothes Campaign and Germany based Bread for the World reveals that around 120,000 labourers across Europe are being forced to work in high risk environments in spite of workplace closures globally. There is still no European legislation to enforce brands and retailers respect human rights throughout supply chains and ban unfair and inhumane trading practices.

In Serbia, Ukraine, Croatia and Bulgaria, employees are still working for far less than a living wage for German fashion brands including Hugo Boss, Gerry Weber, Esprit, as well as German supermarket and drugstore chains. In spite of the current pandemic, factory managers continue to force workers to report to work despite the high risk of infection of Covid-19 and in contravention of international guidelines.

Wages of garment workers remain extremely low in the Eastern and South Eastern Europe manufacturing industries. A Ukrainian tailor will earn around 126 Euro per month, leaving no room to save money for contingencies such as the current Covid-19 crisis.

Currently, even this meagre wage is not paid because apparel companies in Germany are cancelling orders and factories close -- not for the protection of workers, but because there is no work. Employees reported to Clean Clothes Campaign that they are now forced to go on unpaid leave, leaving many already on the poverty line in even more dire circumstances.