How Britain’s high streets are recovering after lockdown – visual analysis

Data reveals that three in 10 shops hadn’t reopened after coronavirus restrictions were lifted – with some areas lagging further behind than others

Following the reopening of the UK’s retail and hospitality sectors through June and July, there were hopes that the economic damage of the coronavirus pandemic could be lessened.

But research from the Local Data Company shows that, as of July, 29% of English high street shops hadn’t reopened in the weeks after lockdown relaxation – with that proportion increasing to as much as 54% in some areas.

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Sexual assault, forced labor, wage theft: garment workers in Jordan suffer for US brands

Activist groups work towards improving labor conditions in textile factories but abolishing the industry’s ‘norms’ is an uphill battle

Mehedi Mehedi, a 36-year-old Bangladeshi garment worker who had spent 14 years working in Jordan, left the country forever last December. It was not an easy decision to make: Mehedi had met his wife in Jordan, he had no guarantees of finding a job back in Bangladesh, and he was desperate to work in order to support his chronically ill father.

In Jordan, Mehedi had been working for a subcontracting factory that supplies apparel to brands like Ralph Lauren, Under Armour, and American Eagle. But after spending his last six months without regular pay, he had reached a breaking point.

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The fashion industry echoes colonialism – DfID’s scheme will subsidise it | Meg Lewis

Covid-19 has exposed the fragility of supply chains, which rely on the labour of black and brown workers. The deep inequalities won’t be fixed by injecting funds at the top

Is the UK governed by parliamentary democracy or big businesses? It is a question that should concern us all, yet it is becoming increasingly hard to differentiate between the two, as the government hands out multimillion-pound contracts to private firms with dubious track records, and ministers revolve between roles at big banks and government. Last week, the line between UK aid and private businesses was called into question, as the Department for International Development (DfID) announced the decision to direct £4.85m of taxpayers’ money towards the work of large retailers including M&S, Tesco and Primark.

The DfID funding is intended to support large companies to fix vulnerable supply chains and ensure that “people in Britain can continue to buy affordable, high-quality goods from around the world”. These aims, along with the fact that UK brands have been entrusted to deliver them, set off alarm bells for labour rights campaigners like myself, who advocate for better working conditions in the global garment industry.

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Fear and fatalism in Birmingham as Covid cases surge

Some say the young are flouting the rules, others doubt the statistics. Most are anxious about what a lockdown will bring

If news that Birmingham was facing a local lockdown troubled drinkers around the Gas Street basin on Thursday afternoon, they were determined to forget it.

“This is the first time I’ve got dressed up and come to town,” said Pam, who didn’t want to give her full name, as she fluffed her pink hair. “I know what’s going on, I’ve worked in Covid wards. I’m not worried being here, but it does feel weird.”

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China retail sales fall fuels concern for global recovery from Covid-19

Retail sales dropped 1.1% in July while industrial production remains subdued

Fears over the strength of China’s economic recovery from the coronavirus pandemic have been raised after retail sales slumped in July and industrial production remained subdued.

Fuelling concerns for the world economy, retail sales in China dropped in July by 1.1% compared with the same month a year ago, missing predictions for a small increase in consumer spending.

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DfID scheme accused of ‘putting UK aid in pockets of wealthy companies’

£6.85m programme places emphasis on benefit to businesses rather than protecting workers in the developing world, say critics

A newly announced aid programme that promises to help workers in the developing world supplying goods to British high street chains like Marks & Spencer, Primark and Morrisons has been condemned for using taxpayers’ money to “pick up the bill” for improving workforce conditions.

The £6.85m scheme, announced on Thursday by international development secretary Anne-Marie Trevelyan, is being promoted explicitly as benefitting British consumers to ensure they “can continue to buy affordable, high quality goods from around the world”.

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Covid led to ‘brutal crackdown’ on garment workers’ rights, says report

Brands including Primark, Zara and H&M accused of failing to protect workers at factories in Asia from ‘union busting’

Some of Europe’s biggest retailers, including Primark, Zara and H&M, are failing to stop Covid-19 being used as a pretext for union busting, human rights activists are warning.

Millions of garment workers in some of the poorest parts of Asia have lost their jobs since coronavirus shutdowns hit the retail industry worldwide.

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Face masks to be mandatory in shops in England, says Hancock – video

Face coverings protect workers and give the public greater confidence to shop, Matt Hancock has said. The health secretary confirmed in a statement to the House of Commons that shoppers would be required to wear masks while in shops and supermarkets. Those who do not will face fines of up to £100

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Coronavirus: what are the rules over face masks in English shops?

Exemptions, enforcement and business reaction to the news that coverings will be compulsory from 24 July

With the government set to announce that wearing a face covering in shops and supermarkets will be mandatory in England from 24 July, here’s what you need to know about the new rules:

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No going back to normal after the pandemic? Don’t bet on it | Gaby Hinsliff

After every crisis, great thinkers declare life will never be the same again. But don’t underestimate the pull of old habits

As the US army rolls into a newly liberated Paris, a woman sits serenely under the only working hairdryer in the city. The war photographer Lee Miller’s iconic shot of a salon reopening amid the rubble in the summer of 1944 could easily have become an image of heartless vanity when Vogue published it. Who cares about a hairdo, when millions have died?

Yet at the time it somehow managed to convey both ingenuity and hope, in a world far enough steeped in death to long for a little frivolity. The return of being able to care about something that doesn’t actually matter must have come, in the circumstances, as a blessed relief. When Boris Johnson announced the reopening of British hairdressers this July, Miller’s picture sprang to mind.

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‘My life became a disaster movie’: the Bangladesh garment factory on the brink

One factory owner tells how coronavirus cancellations by UK brands have seen him struggle to pay wages

As high streets across England opened this week and hundreds of people jostled through the doors of clothing shops, thousands of miles away in Chittagong, Bangladesh, Mostafiz Uddin is worrying about how to pay his workers’ wages.

At Denim Expert Ltd, the sustainable clothing company he founded in 2009 as a sustainable apparels clothing company, hundreds of boxes of jeans are crammed against walls and packed to the ceiling. These boxes contain 38,000 pairs of Burton jeans, worth more than £200,000 that were ready for shipment in early March. But as the UK went into lockdown that month, an email pinged into his inbox that tore his life apart.

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‘We have no money for food or rent’: plight of Bangladeshi garment makers

Clothing factory workers in Bangladesh were hit twice by Covid-19, once when their factories closed, and again when global retailers cancelled orders

Nazmin Nahar, a 26-year-old garment worker and mother of two in Dhaka, Bangladesh, is living on borrowed rice. She hasn’t had the wages to pay for food or rent for more than two months.

Even though the hours were long and the targets relentless, Nahar had been happy working at Magpie Knitwear, where she earned £150 a month, making clothes for UK brands such as Burton and H&M. Then, in late March, Bangladesh went into lockdown and the factory closed. When it reopened on 4 April, Nahar was told she had no job to go back to.

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Zara owner to close up to 1,200 fashion stores around the world

Inditex seeks to boost online retailing as coronavirus causes 44% sales slump

The owner of Zara will close as many as 1,200 stores around the world as the clothing retailer tries to boost online sales during the chaos wrought by the Covid-19 pandemic.

Inditex said it would “absorb” between 1,000 and 1,200 mainly smaller stores, with losses concentrated among older shops from brands other than Zara. The Spanish company’s other brands include Bershka, Pull & Bear and Massimo Dutti.

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Anger at huge shareholder payout as US chain Kohl’s cancels $150m in orders

Retailer paid $109m in dividends just weeks after cancelling clothing orders, leaving suppliers in Bangladesh facing financial crisis

Kohl’s, one of the US’s largest clothing retailers, cancelled millions of dollars worth of existing orders from Bangladeshi and Korean garment factories just weeks before paying out $109m (£85m) in dividends to shareholders, the Guardian can reveal.

The company cancelled orders of clothing worth approximately $100m from Korea and $50m from Bangaldeshi factories after the Covid-19 pandemic struck, and refused petitions from suppliers asking for the option to renegotiate payments. 

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Silly Billy: what the Ikea bookcase tells us about the true cost of fast furniture

A Billy bookcase is made every three seconds. But with a third of people admitting to throwing away furniture that they could have sold or donated, does the cheap furniture boom have a heavy environmental price?

Jo Jackson remembers the day when it was clear that nothing was going to be the same for a while. It was mid-March and Made.com, an online purveyor of millennial-friendly furniture, had big plans for growth in the year of its 10th anniversary.

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Ikea France to face trial over claims it spied on staff and customers

Two former chief executives and four police officials among 15 individuals charged in case

Ikea’s French subsidiary and 15 individuals including former executives and police officials are to go on trial on charges of spying on employees and customers, prosecutors have announced.

Two former Ikea France CEOs are among those charged in a case dating back to 2012 when the Swedish-based home furnishings firm was accused of paying for illegal access to police files.

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Big retailers move to enhanced ‘click and collect’ shopping as coronavirus shutdown endures

Myer launches ‘pop-up’ collection booths as online sales surge while luxury brand stores reopen their doors

Retail giants are set to rely more heavily on click and collect sales even as lockdown restrictions are eased, with the sector’s peak body cautioning against a rush to fully reopen bricks and mortar stores.

Paul Zahra, Australian Retailers Association (ARA) CEO, believes the shift towards delivery and kerbside pickup will leave a “legacy” in Australians’ shopping habits, and said one “fundamentally positive” impact of the pandemic has been that retailers traditionally reluctant to move online have now come on board.

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The key areas to look at in easing the UK coronavirus lockdown

From schools to shops, with jobs at risk, the government must balance the interests of economy and public safety

As the prime minister, Boris Johnson, heads back to Downing Street, he faces calls from Labour to be clearer about how Britain might start lifting the coronavirus lockdown, now entering its fifth week. On Sunday, the foreign secretary and first secretary of state, Dominic Raab, warned the outbreak remained at a “delicate and dangerous” stage and said it was irresponsible to speculate about steps to modify the rules underpinning government’s “stay home, protect the NHS, save lives” strategy.

More than 20,000 people have died from Covid-19 in NHS hospitals and thousands more in care homes. But there are growing concerns about the economic impact of lockdown. Gerard Lyons, Johnson’s economics adviser when he was London mayor, warned on Sunday the UK could be the hardest-hit western economy if it does not unlock soon. The Labour leader, Keir Starmer, also called on ministers to start talking to teachers, businesses, trade unions and town hall leaders and open “honest conversations with the public about what new arrangements might look like”. Unions insist worker safety must not be compromised by any changes and questions remain about public appetite for risking a new peak of contagion, but plans to modify restrictions are starting to emerge.

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What will coronavirus mean for the British economy?

As the UK faces what may be its worst ever recession, we begin a monthly series exploring the financial shock to business and living standards

One month after a national lockdown was declared in an attempt to limit the spread of Covid-19, it is clear that Britain is heading for the deepest recession in living memory.

Boris Johnson’s government launched unprecedented restrictions on 23 March, telling the British public that they must stay at home and bringing life as the nation knew it to an abrupt halt.

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Coronavirus will cause ‘lasting changes’ to shopping habits, says Unilever boss

Alan Jope predicts continued growth in online shopping and continued higher sales of cleaning products

The coronavirus pandemic will trigger “lasting changes” in shopping behaviour, according to one of the world’s biggest manufacturers of grocery brands.

Unilever’s chief executive, Alan Jope, said the health crisis would accelerate the growth of online food shopping. He also predicted a permanent increase in demand for soap and other cleaning supplies as improved hygiene became a priority for households.

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