According to Labour Behind the Label, five retailers get "two cheers" because they have detailed projects to improve pay. They are: Monsoon Accessorise, Gap, Marks and Spencer, Next and New Look (a budget retailer, it should be noted).

Next come some big guns who deserve one cheer, but whose work is unconvincing: Sainsbury's, Asda, Primark, Tesco and Sir Philip Green's Arcadia empire - which includes Burton, Dorothy Perkins, Evans, Miss Selfridge, Outfit, Topshop, Topman and Wallis. These retailers claim they will do something, but have not offered much detail.

Some very large retailers admit, in the words of the report, they "have no plans to do anything about garment employees' poverty wages." Step forward Clarks, Debenhams, French Connection, House of Fraser, John Lewis, Laura Ashley, Matalan, River Island and Levi Strauss.

Bhs, Burberry, Peacocks and a few others did not bother to respond to the survey at all.

What can we make from this report? Quite straightforwardly, it seems that despite all the headlines about sweatshops, and concern among a substantial minority of consumers, fashion retailers are barely bothering to improve the lot of some of the world's most downtrodden workers. People who often work 12 hours a day six days a week, doing the laborious cutting, sewing and stitching that makes the clothes that hang on our backs.

Martin Hearson, the report's author, concludes the fashion industry is split between companies that recognise the problem of poverty wages and are taking action to fix it, and those that aren't, in whose camp he places "do-nothing brands like French Connection, River Island, Matalan and Peacocks."

What should customers do? Boycotts do not help foreign workers, Labour Behind the Label says. Instead, it advises people to keep receipts from their favourite retailer and send them in to it, asking how it is improving workers' pay. I'd be interested to know what they say.