Green attacked for shunning ethical trade group

Sir Philip Green's Arcadia clothing empire-owner of High Street staples Topshop, Miss Selfridge and Burton- has come under fire for failing to join an organisation campaigning to end the exploitation of foreign workers a day ahead of nationwide protests aimed at highlighting the group's lacklustre ethical record.

Arcadia was urged by Trade Minister Gareth Thomas to sign up to the Ethical Trading Initiative (ETI), a Government-backed organisation seeking to improve conditions in sweatshops.

Today, students in the group Planet and People are to campaign outside Topshop stores in 14 cities nationwide as a protest over the group's reliance on poorly paid foreign workers.

Mr Thomas said: "The sad fact is that the conditions for the workers that supply us can fall way below what we would expect. That simply is not good enough."

He said that the British appetite for fast fashion has created thousands of jobs in places like Bangladesh, Lesotho, Sri Lanka, and China. But he said UK retailers should make sure they were decent jobs with a living wage.

In Bangladesh, members of the ETI, which include Tesco, Sainsbury and Asda, had succeeded in almost doubling the national minimum wage, he said. In India, as a result of the project, almost 1500 workers have received health and safety training. In Sri Lanka it was piloting a worker complaint system for 4,000 workers.

"But the ETI needs to be strengthened," said Mr Thomas. "Major British retailers are still not members of the initiative. Arcadia – BHS and Burton are not part of the ETI. B & Q is another. The John Lewis Partnership is one of Britain's most respected retailers – now I know that John Lewis does check its supply chains and does a lot of good work but other members could learn a lot. I am calling on all three companies to sign up to ETI today. I hope that all three will join the ETI soon."

Mr Thomas said that with purchases of Fairtrade labelled and organic produce "people are already making a real difference to poor farmer's lives, but we want to go further as I don't think we can rely on labels alone".

"We need to trade more with Africa and we need more of this trade to be fair and ethical", he added. "We want to see new products in our shops so that many more African farmers have fairer and more profitable trading relationships with UK shoppers".

The charity War on Want warned yesterday that exploitation by British companies was still rife. The group claimed that Sir Philip's £1.2 bn wealth was enough to double the salaries of every worker in Cambodia's garment factories for eight years.

A year after the publication of the charity's acclaimed Fashion Victims report, which exposed the working conditions in sweatshops that produce clothes for Western consumers, the charity warned that precious little progress has been made in combating appalling pay and conditions.