The Bangladesh Garment Manufacturers and Exporters Association (BGMEA) has written to British billionaire Philip Day's Edinburgh Woollen Mill (EWM) group asking it to pay by Friday for clothes shipped before March 25. "BGMEA has taken the stand of blacklisting specific buyers and have begun with EWM," said Rubana Huq, president of the BGMEA, the country's largest trade group for garment factory owners, told the Thomson Reuters Foundation on WhatsApp. A spokesman for Edinburgh Woollen Mill, which includes Austin Reed and Jaeger, said that the company had engaged with all of its suppliers with the best of intentions. Kalpona Akter, founder of the Bangladesh Centre for Worker Solidarity, a union, praised the BGMEA's stance as it could help garment workers, who have been protesting over unpaid wages. "Garment owners keep saying that they are struggling to pay workers because orders are cancelled," she said.

Source: bd News24 May 27, 2020 20:52 UTC