Shein Fails To Address Overwork; 75-Hour Weeks Are Still Common

More than a year after Shein promised to tackle excessive working hours in its supply chain, a new report suggests the Chinese fast-fashion company still has a problem, Anna Cooban reported for CNN.

Workers in some factories supplying Shein are still working 75-hour weeks. I Photo: Dick Thomas Johnson Flickr

Workers in some factories supplying Shein are still working 75-hour weeks, according to an investigation by Public Eye, a Swiss human rights group that first highlighted the alleged abuse back in 2021.

“The 75-hour weeks that we found out about two years ago still seem to be common at Shein,” the organization said. Public Eye interviewed 13 textile workers employed at six factories in Guangzhou, a region in southern China, last summer.

It found that staff worked an average of 12 hours a day, excluding lunch and dinner breaks, usually for six or seven days a week.

Public Eye also claimed that workers’ wages had hardly changed since its 2021 report. They fluctuated between 6,000 and 10,000 yuan per month ($829 and $1,382). However, after deducting pay for overtime, wages fell to about 2,400 yuan ($332) a month.

That’s well below the 6,512 yuan ($900) Public Eye says is a living wage in China, citing calculations by the campaign group Asia Floor Wage Alliance. Shein was also found to have employed children, Juliana Liu also reported for CNN.