Primark. A budget clothing brand in the UK and Ireland. They are known for having one of the worst workers’ rights out of any company in the UK. Their headquarters are based in Ireland and, in Ireland, they trade under the name Penney’s. Primark have been lambasted because of employing children to do the labour and make their budget clothes. I personally think that this is a disgrace to the company, and people should boycott it immediately.
They employ over 26,000 people in their stores and factories. In 2005, Primark scored the worst out of any clothing manufacturer for the way it treats its workers. They scored a lowly 3.5 out of 20. Since then, however, Primark have been duly contesting such scores and they have still denied ever having bad ” work ethics”.
All of Primark stores have their own brands. Thus, this enables them to sell these brands at cheap prices as they don’t have to pay licensing fees and fees to other companies. They have 13 brands that are in their stores, each brand having a segment of the marketshare.
Recently, Primark have started open many more stores. So why haven’t they been shut down because of their ethics and the child labour? No-one really knows. There still hasn’t been enough evidence against them, and because of this, they continue to trade.
Child labour is still a growing problem in many of today’s corporate structures. I previously revealed Nike’s child labour in China and Indonesia. I can safely say that Primark are no better, and for that, they should be shut down.
It has also been revealed that in September 2007, Primark were fined £8,000 for breaching the safety regulations on their clothing. Surely their clothing would have gone through rigorous testing before being sold to the public? Sadly not.
Primark just fall short for me in every possible way. Sure, their clothing is cheap, but that in itself comes at a price. Their clothing just doesn’t live up to the standard of quality I expect from a high-street clothing chain. Then there’s the much-repeated child labour and safety regulations breach. For these reasons, Primark should never be allowed to trade again, and I stand by that. I never have bought, nor will I ever buy, any item from Primark.
Hmmm, I’m going out tonight. I heard about this great shirt from Primark!
October 20, 2008 at 10:41 pm
Another great article, keep ‘em coming!
October 21, 2008 at 12:57 pm
Very good Mik…in South Africa there is a store called Mr Price and a similar one called Jet. They have only 3-4 brands being mass produced. They sizes are aimed at the anorexic, i swear – it goes all the way down to super super super small. Cheap and the workers would rather scowl at you than help you.