General Chat

I don't know how they get away with it. They have worked all through the lockdown apparently. Owners appear to be mostly Asian (Indian) and the workers Asian and Bolivian and probably other immigrants. The factories are known in Leicester as The Dark Factories (after Dark Satanic Mills). And we are supposed to be a civilised country criticizing the sweat shops abroad. Clothes are apparently made for New Look, Boohoo, river Island and a few I didn't recognise at all.

The system is the cause of the lockdown.
£4 an hour is well below minimum wage - how has the employer managed to get away with it?
Even claiming sick pay via the Government only gives you £95 a week for the first event.
If you aren't ill within the next 6 weeks, the amount you'll get a week after that is £26.
If you ARE ill within 6 weeks, you get the £95.
Confusing? Yes! Enough to pay the rent/mortgage? NO.

I have just been reading a report about clothing factories in Leicester where the workers are paid as low as £4 an hour and even go into work if they have tested positive for Covid19, because they can't afford not to work (no sick pay). One worker in one of the factories tested positive and when he told his employer, he was told to continue to go to work but not to tell his colleagues about the test. No wonder it is spreading rapidly there still. Surely somebody should be doing something about that. They are obviously the cause of the lockdown.