On Saturday the 20th November, demonstrators representing The National Group on Homeworking and No Sweat gathered for the first of three events in Leeds to raise awareness of the continued exploitation of people working from home, most of whom are women and many of whom are migrants or refugees. Supermarkets such as Asda - Walmart, Sainsburys, Tesco and Morrisons acquire their Christmas cards and crackers packaged by companies such as ********* who source their labour from people working from home who are not technically employees.
These supermarkets claim to be part of the Ethical Trading Initiative, yet consistently refuse to require that companies such as ******** conduct time motion surveys to see how many crackers or cards a worker can package in one hour. By paying a fixed amount for a job, in practice these companies are getting away with paying as little as £1-40 per hour, also with no obligations on holiday, sickness or maternity leave.
Further demonstrations will be taking place on the 27th November outside Disney between 12 noon and 2pm, and on the 11th December outside of Asda in Pudsey where a giant christmas card will be presented to the store manager, requesting that they ensure better rights for homeworkers.