Big brand retailers turning up the heat for vulnerable workers

Let us now praise the Wal-Marts of the world--Big brand retailers turning up the heat for vulnerable workers (from Oxfam):

Big brand retailers turning up the heat for vulnerable workers

Big brand companies and retailers in the fashion and food industries are driving down employment conditions for millions of women workers around the world, according to a new study by international agency Oxfam.

Oxfam says that huge retailing empires are undermining the very labour standards they claim to uphold by using a common business model that demands ever-quicker and cheaper delivery of the freshest and latest products.

The companies are using their power at the top of global supply chains to squeeze their suppliers to deliver. This pressure is dumped immediately onto women workers in the form of ever-longer hours at faster work rates, often in poor conditions and with no job security. The report says that millions of women are being denied their fair share of the benefits of globalisation as a result.

'This is where globalisation is failing in its potential to lift people out of poverty and support development,' says Oxfam's Make Trade Fair campaign director Phil Bloomer. 'There is a widening gap between the rhetoric of global corporate social responsibility and the reality of the corporate business model. Many corporations have codes of conduct to hold their suppliers accountable for labour standards, but their own ruthless buying strategies often make it impossible for these standards to be met.'