Superdry recognizes that we have a responsibility for the wellbeing of the 67,000 workers in our supply chain – ensuring that working environments are FAIR AND SAFE, OPERATING SUSTAINABLY, and that people from all backgrounds are TREATED EQUALLY & HAVE A VOICE.
Wages are a major part of our approach to ensuring fair working conditions.
Ultimately, we all work to live.
Our supply chain spans multiple territories - each with unique cultures, expectations, and laws. We are therefore committed to working with our factories locally to drive improvement, and where required, to drive improvement to establish themselves as leading employers of choice.
To understand our factories position within the market, and to report transparently against the local legal baseline, we have started by establishing the average basic wage across 100% of our 95 Tier 1s (manufacturing sites).
This baseline covers standard working hours only. We know that these wages fit into a wider package, including overtime wages, bonuses, and social security, which have a significant impact on the amount that workers take home. In FY23, we will start to track these to further develop the wage picture in our supply chain.
Globally, in FY22 (between May 2021 and April 2022), our factories paid 31% higher than the minimum wage for standard hours.
| Country | # Factories | # Workers | % Superdry's Production | % of Minimum Wage Paid for Standard Hours Worked |
| China | 29 | 14,182 | 48% | 52% |
| India | 20 | 22,336 | 27% | 4% |
| Turkey | 27 | 8,232 | 21% | 11% |
| Sri Lanka | 9 | 8,075 | 4% | 84% |
| Cambodia | 4 | 8,826 | 1% | 10% |
| Vietnam | 5 | 5,137 | >1% | 22% |
| Bulgaria | 1 | 418 | >1% | 32% |
| Total | 95 | 67,206 | 100% | 31% |
Wage data used to calculate the above has been collected by third party auditors and Superdry’s local labour standards experts within the last 11 months (100% factories, between May 2021 and April 2022). Wages have been weighted by the volume of Superdry product that each factory produces, to provide the most accurate picture of the wages paid for the creation of our garments. Where minimum wage is specifically defined by skill level in certain countries, this has been considered in the weighting.
Country specific improvement plans
Over the coming year, we will build a wage ladder for each country and establish specific targets to ensure suppliers are moving up this ladder, driving improvement.
We recognize that we have a greater ability to drive change with suppliers that we have a higher volume of business with, so these suppliers will be prioritized first.
How we work with our suppliers
We know that the purchasing practices of brands have a significant impact on working conditions – especially wages.
As well as working with suppliers to ensure our forecasting aligns with actual capacity, agreeing lead times and supporting the consistency of order placement – we also work with key suppliers to ensure costs reflect fair and safe conditions.
For our jersey categories produced in Turkey (accounting for 13% of our total order volume) and other core packages, our commercial teams complete open costing with suppliers to gain a detailed and holistic view of all the costs involved in making each garment.
The wage rates within each factory (including benefits like social insurance) are used in conjunction with all other cost areas (such as fabric, energy usage and transportation) to calculate a cost per minute for each garment.
This level of visibility is instrumental in driving fair price negotiations, and we intend to extend the method out to other categories and territories.
We track wage payments during our audit processes, and work with our suppliers to ensure wage payment records are maintained with transparency, where possible our suppliers pay workers digitally – which is easier to trace.
Where workers are paid by the piece, we reconcile wage payments to ensure they achieve the legal wage requirements for both standard and overtime hours. We also ensure that workers have access to legally recognised annual leave and public holidays.
- 90% of factories in our supply chain pay workers digitally.
- 26% of factories pay workers using a piece rate for all or part of their wage package.
- 100% of factories that pay workers using a piece rate for all or part of their wage package are required to implement systems to ensure the legal minimum wage is paid on all standard hours worked. During audits we ensure these workers are sampled in line with our protocol, 100% workers sampled year to date were paid at least the minimum wage.
Collective voice
A major factor in strengthening the position of workers within factories is fair and equal representation. As of March 2023, 48% of our factories have formed effective worker committees or trade unions.
We know, as members of the Ethical Trading Initiative, and from seeing the results in factory, when these structures are capacitated, recognized, and working effectively, they improve the ability of workers to negotiate on core material topics including wages.
Through our RESPECT PROGRAMME, we are committed to ensuring that 100% of workers in our supply chains have effective representation in their workforces through strong committee structures – 22% of workers have been covered by the programme thus far (against this year’s target of 18%). We will have reached 100% of workers by 2030.