Germana Carillo The BBC visited the so-called “Shein village” in Guangzhou, China, and found that workers making clothes for the fast fashion giant were working around 75 hours a week, in breach of the country’s labour laws.
©PublicEye
“If a month has 31 days, I work for 31 days“, confides one worker in a Shein factory to the astounding BBC investigation.
The hum of sewing machines is part of the near-constant cacophony in sections of Guangzhou, the teeming, Pearl River port city in China’s southland. The machines hum through a day of mostly open factory windows and into most nights, the workers churning out T-shirts, shorts, blouses, pants, and swimwear on their way to closets in more than 150 countries.
The BBC accounts for Panyu as a district, actually nicknamed the “Shein village,” hosting around 5,000 factories, most supplying Shein. That is a maze of factories powering the world’s largest fast fashion retailer.
The BBC investigation
The BBC spent several days in the “Shein village,” visiting at least 10 factories and speaking with four factory owners and more than 20 workers. It showed astonishingly that the core of Shein’s empire is a workforce clocking about 75 hours a week-violation of Chinese labor laws-all for a company which became a global giant in just over five years.
We usually work 10, 11 or 12 hours a day,” said one 49-year-old worker from Jiangxi. “On Sundays, we work about three hours less.”
“We’re paid by the piece,” she said. “It depends on how difficult the item is. Something simple, like a T-shirt, earns one to two yuan per piece. I can make about a dozen in an hour.
Still privately owned, Shein is estimated to be valued at around $66 billion. Reports suggest it may be about to float on the London Stock Exchange. Its meteoric success has also played catch-up on mistreatment of staff and children were reportedly found working in its Chinese factories just last year.
According to the BBC, standard working hours in these factories seem to be from 8 a.m. to 10 p.m.—and often even longer. This has also been corroborated by Swiss group Public Eye, whose interviews with 13 garment workers in factories making for Shein reported that workers’ base salary without overtime came at 2,400 yuan-about $340-far below the 6,512 yuan-$925-which the Asia Floor Wage Alliance states is necessary for a “living wage.”
These hours are not exceptional, but they are against the law and basic human rights,” said David Hachfield of Public Eye. “It’s very severe exploitation, and that has to be visible.”
Chinese labor laws put the maximum average workweek at 44 hours, with employers obliged to provide workers with at least one day of rest per week.
Shein would not be interviewed but told the BBC it is committed to “ensuring fair and dignified treatment of all workers within our supply chain” and is investing tens of millions of dollars in strengthening governance and compliance.”
“We strive to set the highest wage standards and require all supply chain partners to adhere to our code of conduct. Furthermore, Shein works with auditors to ensure compliance,” the company added.
Why is Shein so popular?
Well, the reason for Shein’s success is the huge amount of production they have done for “affordable fashion,” although that would probably be a waste.
Shein has hundreds of thousands of items online, and its rock-bottom prices have driven revenues past those of H&M, Zara, and the UK’s Primark. What’s the secret? Algorithms drive its production. “If shoppers are clicking on a particular dress a lot-or spending more time lingering on a wool sweater-the company immediately orders factories to produce more, fast.
