A TEXTILE company at the centre of a row over “slave labour” is supplying clothes to at least three high-street chains in Britain.

Last month The Sunday Times revealed the low pay and long working hours of staff at Compagnie Mauricienne de Textile (CMT), based in Mauritius, which supplies clothes for brands, including Topman, controlled by Sir Philip Green, the Monaco-based billionaire.

It has now emerged that CMT also makes garments for Next and for George, the Asda super-market chain’s range of budget clothing.

Wages at the firm are as low as £70 a month for Bangladeshi employees, while those from Sri Lanka are paid about £100. Staff work for up to 70 hours a week.

The average wage in Mauritius is about £200 a month.

“Companies [in countries like Mauritius] are unable to attract local labour . . . Many migrant workers in these garment factories are like slaves,” said Neil Kearney of the International Textile, Garment and Leather Workers Federation.

The emergence of cheap manufacturing locations has been a key factor in the boom in bargain clothing for British shoppers. But the concerns over CMT have highlighted an opaque area of the international labour market - the migration of low-cost workers between countries in the developing world.

Textile workers are often lured to Mauritius by recruitment agencies who tour towns in Bangladesh and Sri Lanka promising high wages. For a fee of up to £725, agencies fly the recruits to Mauritius and arrange a job lasting three years.

Some workers, however, have complained that the wages they are promised are far higher than what they receive in Mauritius. In one example from a union official, a textile worker was told she would be paid about £400 a month, but received only £100.

British retailers commission audits of their suppliers in developing countries that are supposed to ensure that the drive for low prices in shops does not endanger workers’ welfare.

Asda, Next and Arcadia, the parent company of Topman, have all commissioned regular inspections of CMT, most of which have found little cause for concern. All the retailers have taken the allegations in last month’s articles seriously and have launched investigations.

Next has begun inquiring “into the practices of third-party recruitment agencies”, which a senior source at the company acknowledged were “an opaque business”.

Asda, owned by Wal-Mart, the American retail giant, has questioned CMT closely about its practices since last month’s revelations in The Sunday Times.

The chain, for which Andrew Flintoff, the England cricketer, models the George range, is confident that CMT is a high-quality company, but a spokesman said: “The issue looks like it has been with regard to the particular agency [CMT] have been using in terms of recruiting workers.”

He added that CMT was taking steps to ensure that potential recruits were given detailed, accurate information about what their jobs would entail. “There will be clarity in terms of how much salary and things like that are being paid.

“I think what [The Sunday Times] discovered is that there wasn’t,” he said.

Asda, Next, Arcadia and CMT all denied that the workers were underpaid, adding that the wage levels complied with laws in Mauritius and with their own codes.

François Woo, managing director of CMT, went further. “Our expatriate workforce draws a package which is higher than the local average,” he said. “Furthermore, our expatriate workforce is provided with free accommodation, transport and food of good quality.” Woo valued these fringe benefits at £80 a month for each expatriate worker.

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