Fashion brands accused of exploiting millions of workers at risk of layoffs amid Covid-19

DHAKA - Millions of garment workers could lose their jobs as global brands are demanding price cuts and delaying payments to suppliers who are desperate for orders to survive the new coronavirus pandemic, US researchers said on Friday .

"We are seeing a dramatic squeeze down of price, reduced orders and late payment," said Mark Anner, author of the report and director of the CGWR. Suppliers in countries including Cambodia, Ethiopia, Guatemala, India, Mexico, Peru and Vietnam told CGWR that they had already laid off 10 per cent of their workers and would have to cut another 35 per cent of their labour force if order reductions continued.

"Buyers are taking advantage of this," said Anner, dubbing it an"emerging second crisis" for suppliers after the billons lost in cancelled and unpaid orders earlier in the year. The Thomson Reuters Foundation spoke to five garment manufacturers in Bangladesh - which hosts more than half of the 75 suppliers involved in the study - who said they had been forced to cut their prices by 5 per cent to 15 per cent.

More on this topic The Geneva-based International Organisation of Employers , a global business network, said brands and suppliers were trying to find solutions in"extremely difficult circumstances".

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