FILE - Source: PearlinadesignsLONDON – 25 January 2019: The British fashion sector is rife with exploitation and underpayment 20 years after the minimum wage was supposed to have curbed worker abuse, lawmakers said on Friday.Textile firms were forced to make payments for unpaid wages totaling 87,158 pounds ($113,645) to 126 workers between 2012 and 2018 following probes by the tax authority.Details of the payouts show old habits die hard at some fashion factories, said the parliamentary Environmental Audit Committee (EAC). "'Made in the UK' should mean workers are paid at least the minimum wage," said committee chair Mary Creagh in a statement. "It has been 20 years since the introduction of the minimum wage, but in our inquiry, we heard that underpayment is rife and goes hand in hand with a culture of fear and intimidation. "We know that there is a high risk of abuse and exploitation in the garment sector," Caroline Robinson, chief executive of the charity Focus on Labour Exploitation, told the Thomson Reuters Foundation. "This evidence of relatively small sums recovered for workers over a six-year period also shows that only the minority of cases are currently uncovered.

Source: Egypt Today January 25, 2019 08:26 UTC