‘I wish I could see my son more. But the £6 ticket is too much’
THE sprawling NAZ factory in Mirzapur, which makes boys’ polo shirts that Aldi sells for £1.95 for two, is set in a forest at the bottom of a muddy track behind large gates.
Despite legal limits of 60 working hours a week, the MoS discovered workers who had toiled for up to 74 hours across seven days.
One of them was 25-year-old Jhuma (not her real name), who earns the minimum legal wage of just 25p an hour as a helper and lives with her husband in a one-room tin shack.
Her bed is a threadbare mat on the dirty concrete floor. Her four-year-old son lives with relatives and it is a long journey costing more than £6 to visit him. As a result, she can only see him twice a year.
She said: ‘I really have to consider when I spend money on it – and I wish I could see him more. It is hard. I try to save for his future education but there is rarely anything to put away.’
An Aldi spokesperson said last night: ‘Suppliers are contractually required to comply with national laws and Aldi’s social standards in production. We will visit this facility again and carry out a full audit to investigate these allegations. The cost we agree with our suppliers is not influenced in any way by our retail price.’
Mr Shahriar, NAZ’s assistant head of operations said: ‘Our salaries are in accordance with the government minimum wage and we pay workers better than most factories.’
He claimed salaries increase by five per cent every year. When we told him we had seen a worker’s wage slip detailing a 12-hour day including lunch, he said: ‘Our employees only work ten-hour days including overtime.’ He said he would enquire into the individual case.