Liverpool students protest outside Topshop

Topshop's dirty record on poverty pay, and labour rights abuses attacked by Liverpool students

Liverpool students joined forces with students and consumers all over the country to protest against Topshop’s human rights abuses and poverty wages in its supply chain. Topshop, which is owned by Arcadia Group, who also own Dorothy Perkins, Miss Selfridges, Wallis, Evans, and Topman, amongst others, is the only leading brand on the high street not to have shown that it is serious about ethical trading.

Other brands, even those who have been attacked for their equally bad record on working weeks stretching to 72 hours, exploitation of immigrant labour, disgraceful health conditions, and below-poverty-line-wages, have at least signalled that they care by joining the Ethical Trading Initiative.

Although not in itself enough to guarantee good conditions, as a report showed on Friday about Primark, it at least shows a genuine commitment to making improvements and an acceptance that there is a problem.

This is something that Philip Green, the head of Arcadia, clearly has failed to do, as successive Sunday Times reports have shown.

Liverpool students, as have the students of many other cities, have shown that young people no longer want to fund exploitation in order for Philip Green to enjoy such bountiful bonuses.