Tarek Islam, from FAB-L, says the group helps exploited garment workers who often struggle because of poor English language skills.
Tarek says Leicester’s garment workers sometimes accept such low wages because they are afraid of losing Universal Credit if they do not take action to get paid work, external.
Employers also convince workers they are doing them “a favour” by giving them the experience to find minimum wage jobs, Tarek adds.
Tarek says some firms demand unpaid hours, or cash refunds, so their audits record the payment of “full wages”.
“They [employers] may make a payslip for 18 hours, so on the system people are getting paid for 18 hours, but they’ll make them work for 36 hours,” Tarek says.
“So when you check the paperwork, everything seems fine. Another thing they’ll do is say, ‘I’ll pay the full wages in your account, so on paper we can pass all the audits, however we agreed only £5 to £6 an hour, so that extra money you need to give back to me’.”
Tarek says exploitation in the industry has been the “absolute norm”.
However, he adds: “Because the brands have increased their auditing process, and become tighter, the workers we’ve spoken to mostly say they’re being paid the minimum wage.”
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