Topshop pulls out of graduate recruitment due to People & Planet
Afraid of having to discuss its working practises, Topshop has cancelled a graduate recruitment event.
It seems that, afraid that their brand is suffering damage from being continuously associated with the human rights abuses and poverty wages in their supply chain, they are trying to protect it, by withdrawing from public view altogether!
Could it possibly be because People & Planet would have turned their shameless whitewash strategy of getting students to design Fairtrade t-shirts, into PR nightmare, because they would have had to defend their genuinely poor record on labour rights? A handful of Topshops’s clothing lines out of thousands are Fairtrade, and they are the only leading firm on the High Street not to have joined the Ethical Trading Initiative, showing no real commitment to labour rights and environmental responsibility.
According to the Edinburgh Student newspaper, Amy Elderton, a spokesperson for the Arcadia group who own Topshop, said: “Due to the reaction against the Topman activity that was at Edinburgh University the week before Topshop activity was scheduled, we took advice from the university and through our university contacts and decided we didn’t want to put our staff in any danger by continuing with the T-shirt printing part of the activity.”
Fiona Ranford, People & Planet member responded: “We have been nothing but peaceful in our approach to challenging Topshop’s supply chain practices. Their withdrawal reflects their fear of being asked difficult questions and having an unfavourable light shed on their brand, not some ungrounded fear of staff abuse.
“Students will continue to ask questions of retailers who can’t provide a serious plan to improve conditions and wages for exploited garment workers, soon Topshop will have to stop running and start answering. Students won’t be fooled or satisfied by token gestures.”