High fashion wasn’t all that was parading around London at the opening of LFW as protesters gathered outside the main entrance of Somerset House, the central venue, on Friday, Feb. 15, fighting to make workers’ rights fashionable.
Union organizers, officials and workers from ITF, International Transport Workers’ Federation and UNI Global Union challenged a major sponsor of London Fashion Week, and its official logistics provider, Deutsche Post DHL, over its ongoing abuse of employees’ rights.
Two models, pictured in the slideshow, dressed in high fashion clothes created from packing materials and styled to match, paraded outside of the entrance of the main venue holding LFW.
ITF and UNI are fighting for workers’ rights worldwide, documenting repeated abuses in multiple countries where DHL operates and used London Fashion Week to spread the message because, according to Steve Cotton, acting general secretary of ITF, it is the “celebrity face” of the company.
London Fashion Week is the celebrity face of DHL, but there’s a much less glamorous side to the company, and that’s what we aim to expose and keep on exposing – until they fix it by treating all their workers decently.
The models along with UNI and ITF officials handed out leaflets to the LFW visitors detailing the employment practices of DHL.
Hello London Fashion Week visitor,
We know you care about where your clothes come from and that they’re ethically sourced and produced.
But what about the companies that deal with the delivery of fashion? Do they care?
Deutsche Post DHL is a major sponsor of London Fashion Week and its official logistics provider. DHL employees are a crucial part of the fashion supply chain.
But … did you know that DHL has illegally fired workers in Turkey and used lie detectors against staff in Colombia, Panama and South Africa? Did you know that it has relied on agency workers to work on lower wages and with no job security in the UK, Malaysia, Indonesia and India? One DHL company was even fined after staffing a US factory with students who thought they were on a cultural exchange.
If you love fashion and don’t like what you’re hearing here why not visit www.respectatlfw.org, where you can see how to raise your concern with DHL management? Or you can find out more from the person who handed you this leaflet.
Thanks for your time today.
London Fashion Week closes tomorrow, Feb. 19.
Source: ITF Press Release
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