Weekly news
Weekly news: 25 October 2026
By Labour Lens
Australia
Baptist World Aid's 2026 Ethical Fashion Report, released on 20 October, gave 500 fashion brands an average score of 31.5 out of 100, a 0.2% improvement on 2024, ABC News reported. Patagonia scored 70. Katherine Halliday, Baptist World Aid's ethical fashion lead, said almost no garment workers are paid a living wage.
Sources abc.net.au, baptistworldaid.org.au
This week's news
Pakistan
Workers at a garment factory near Karachi that makes clothes for Zara and Mango described fainting and falling ill from heat at work, with no heat sensors, broken fans and little cold water, the Associated Press reported on 20 October. All but one of the more than a dozen workers AP interviewed said they lost pay when heat illness kept them home. Inditex, which owns Zara, said it is strengthening its work on heat stress, and Mango said its supplier code now covers extreme heat.
Source clickondetroit.com
United States
Starbucks asked a federal judge on 21 October to dismiss a proposed class action by Brazilian coffee workers who say they were forced to work in inhumane conditions on farms it relied on, Law360 reported. Starbucks argues the workers haven't shown that the plantations that employed them supplied its beans.
Source law360.com
United Kingdom
97% of food and drink businesses in a survey by the British Standards Institution and the Chartered Institute of Procurement & Supply found modern slavery or serious labour rights violations in their supply chains in the past year, Food Manufacture reported on 23 October. Across all sectors, only 22% of business leaders said they had full visibility of their third-party suppliers.
Source foodmanufacture.co.uk
Changes on Labour Lens
No grades changed because of this week's news. The pages for Zara (Inditex) and Mango now list the AP report, and Starbucks' page lists its motion to dismiss. These are allegations, which don't change a grade, so Zara and Mango stay at Lacks transparency and Starbucks at Harm on record.
On Labour Lens Zara (Inditex), Mango
We changed 30 grades on 22 October because of rule changes and corrected research. The full list is on our changes page.
On Labour Lens Grade changes
Berghaus, Canterbury, Speedo, Kathmandu and Rip Curl moved from Harm on record to Lacks transparency, as Ellesse did. Their owners' reports describe problems at a Taiwan mill but don't say which brands it supplied, so we now count it as a link, not a finding.
On Labour Lens Grading: Harm on record
Toffifee, merci and Ferragamo moved from On Track to Lacks transparency. We now count SA8000 only where it certifies a company's own factories, and their certificates don't cover the cocoa farms or the contract workshops that make most of their products.
Acne Studios
On Track to Harm on record. Fair Wear found in 2023 that three Chinese factories making its products didn't pay the legal minimum wage, overtime premiums or leave, with no public record of it being put right.
On Labour Lens Acne Studios
Picture Organic Clothing
Lacks transparency to Harm on record. Audits at its main supplier in China found falsified wage and hours records in 2021, only partly put right.
On Labour Lens Picture Organic Clothing
Nerada Tea moved from Good to Lacks transparency, Zwiesel Glas from Good to On Track and Buckle 1922 from On Track to Lacks transparency after we corrected where their products come from.
Rolex, Swatch, Chopard and six other brands moved from Good to On Track, and six more moved between On Track and Lacks transparency, after we checked our country ratings against the ITUC Global Rights Index 2025 and the Global Slavery Index 2023 and added 89 countries.
We now treat the 2026 Ethical Fashion Report as the latest edition. Brand pages that cite the 2024 edition say a newer one is out, and their grades change only when we re-research them with the 2026 scores.
Coming up
Bangladesh
The government's National Tripartite Consultative Council meets on 27 October to discuss a new garment wage board, and the labour secretary hopes to publish the board's notice in October, BSS reported.
Source tbsnews.net