Rjan:
The reality is that the vast majority of consumers do not sit around scheming ways to force down their own pay at work.Consumers could not even possibly be expected to know whether the supermarket selling cheap goods was doing so as a result of attacks on their own wages at work, or as a result of better investment or organisation, or even as a result of lower profits. Consumers have no right to inspect records, to demand data, or to inspect private areas and question staff.
Awwwwwwww…ok. When you go to the store to buy a say, a t-shirt, do you look for a) brand b) price c) quality? Don’t tell me because it doesn’t matter what you do. What matters is what the vast majority of buyers are and have been doing for the last 2 decades or so. Go to a clothing store, any clothing store bar the top of the (price) range ones - and find me a piece of clothing that was made in the UK/EU. Yeh, good luck. Used to be all made in China but nowadays since labor costs in China have been going up they’re all coming from poorer countries like Vietnam and Bangladesh. Quality? Nah. Brand? Big Brands used to equal quality, now - it’s all about the price tag, all same ■■■■ made by some overworked kid or elderly woman on a 14 hour shift for a £1-2/daily wage. Lower price = more sales; more sales = more profit. Doesn’t take a Harvard economist to figure it out. If they were to make these here paying UK minimal wage we’d be looking at prices x10 or more, not many would spend £30-50 on a t-shirt.