Burmese workers that produced F+F jeans for Tesco in Thailand report being trapped in effective forced labour, working 99-hour weeks for illegally low pay in appalling conditions, a Guardian investigation has found.
Tesco faces a landmark lawsuit in the UK from 130 former workers at VK Garment Factory (VKG), who are suing them for alleged negligence and unjust enrichment. The workers made jeans, denim jackets and other F&F clothes for adults and children for the Thai branch of Tesco’s business between 2017 and 2020.
Tesco said the garments were sold only on the Thai market, though the Guardian has seen images of labels written in English on clothes understood to be made there. Profits from sales in Thailand went back to the UK.
It is believed to be the first time a UK company has been threatened with litigation in the English courts over a foreign garment factory in its supply chain that it does not own.
The factory is in Mae Sot, a city at the Myanmar border that relies on Burmese migrant labour, and which has developed a reputation over the last decade as a “wild west” for workers’ rights. The lawsuit argues that Tesco should have known the area was notorious for exploitation.
The Guardian has investigated the allegations made by the former factory workers and interviewed 21 of them in Mae Sot. They described:
Being paid as little as 3 a day to work from 8am to 11pm with just one day off a month.
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