Home topics news News News Big W donates to hospital after violating fire labelling law David Olsen March 30, 2010 Big W has come to an agreement with the ACCC and will pay $400,000 in contributions to charity and research after breaching fire labelling laws for children’s clothes. Big W will make a contribution of $200,000 to the Sydney Children’s Hospital, Randwick and a further $200,000 to a major research program into the mandatory safety standard that the company was found to be in breach of. The funding follows a major recall of children’s nightwear by Woolworths Limited, trading as Big W, and its supplier Vinetex & Co Pty Ltd. The companies have given the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission court-enforceable undertakings after supplying and selling a range of children’s nightwear products that had incorrect fire labelling. “The ACCC enforces a mandatory standard for the labelling of children’s nightwear,” ACCC deputy chair Peter Kell said today. “It is designed to reduce the risk of burns injuries to children by providing specific information on the fire hazard of relevant garments.” “Although there has been a significant reduction in hospitalisation rates due to burns from nightwear since the late 1970s, when the standard was introduced, burns from nightwear can and still do occur.” As a part of this monitoring, the ACCC identified that a number of children’s nightwear items sold in Big W stores across Australia were incorrectly labelled as ‘low fire danger’ when flammability testing showed they should have been labelled