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Demand for Productivity vs Violation of Human Rights

June 21, 2019 | Expert Insights

Background 

The garment industry exemplifies the challenges of global manufacturing - low wages, "flexible" contracts (or no contracts), and sweatshop conditions. Garment production in poorer countries offers needed investment and employment, but there is a competitive requirement “for poorer countries to offer the cheapest workers and the most flexible (unregulated) conditions”. 

60 percent of the garment production is concentrated in Asia. Women disproportionately bear the brunt of this exploitation. 80% of global garment workers are women, according to the International Labor Organization. Minimum wage rates in Asia are often set by governments below official poverty lines. 

The Human Rights Watch has consistently heard accounts of workers from different countries - Cambodia, Bangladesh, India, Myanmar, and Pakistan - about the pressure to work faster and without breaks. Few common methods of getting workers to produce more include restricting workers’ toilet breaks, trimming their meal breaks, squeezing “trainings” into lunch or other rest breaks so the “production time” is not lost, disallowing drinking water breaks and other rest breaks. Pregnant workers from different countries have told Human Rights Watch that they have found themselves targeted as “unproductive".

Analysis

An investigation based on the interviews conducted by Thomson Reuters Foundation has revealed that cloth factories in Tamil Nadu were giving their female employees illegal painkillers that are having serious side - effects on their health. 

The pills are administered by a supervisor known as the ‘timekeeper’, whose job also includes keeping tabs on workers’ hours and even their breaks besides managing a small medical dispensary. The women who were interviewed by TRF, were aged between 15 and 25, and said that they were always instructed to gulp down the pills in front of the overseer, without being informed on its side effects "The choice was between losing wages and popping more pills to get through the day's production targets," said Kanaga Marimuthu, a 21-year old woman working at one such factory.

Government data says that more than 3,00,000 female workers are employed at the 40,000 garment factories and spinning mills across Tamil Nadu. According to the India's Factories Act. It is mandatory for medical dispensaries to be run by qualified nurses or doctors but smaller factories were known to defy the act.

TRF sent the unmarked pills to be examined by experts and found that they were non-steroidal, anti-inflammatory drugs, similar to over-the-counter medicines like Ibuprofen and Advil. These provide the workers' relief from cramps but are also known to have harmful side-effects if taken frequently. 

Dr P Nalina Kumari, who has treated many women working in spinning mills and garment factories said, "The pills they seem to be given are basically causing a hormonal imbalance in their bodies. The visible symptoms are nausea and vomiting. The invisible symptoms are erratic menstrual cycles, depression and in many cases difficulty in conceiving." Jeeva Balamurugan, general secretary of the all-women Tamil Nadu Textile and Common Labour Union, claims that the factory bosses were aware of how the pills could affect the menstruation yet continued to hand them out freely so they could ensure maximum productivity.

An official from Tamil Nadu said the state would launch a project to monitor the health of its garment workers and collect data on how many suffered from work-related health problems in light of this investigation. The Ethical Trade Initiative (ETI), a group of trade unions, charities and companies including top brands such as H&M, Mothercare, and Gap Inc., said it had heard of pills being given to workers and was investigating. 

Another report by the Hindu Business Line indicated that women in the drought affected district of Maharasthra resort to hysterectomies so that they don’t have to take time off from cutting cane during their menstrual cycles. The contractors don’t actively coerce the women to opt for surgery, but instead, manipulate families or pay advances to the women to get the surgery done, the cost of which is later deducted from their already abysmal wages.

Assessment 

Our assessment is that the fast fashion supply chain models creates unreasonable production targets and underbid contracts. We feel that despite the improvements made after the collapse of Rana Plaza in Bangaldesh, that killed 1134 workers, the industry is still putting the health and well-being of these workers at risk. 

We believe that there are rules but implementation is a challenge. Various codes of conduct narrowly focus on building safety and physical infrastructure while issues such as long working hours, physical and mental health of the workers are all issues that remain ‘invisible’. 

It is known that the governments of producing countries worldwide are primarily responsible for working conditions and labor law compliance in factories. But according to international standards, though non-binding, global apparel companies that order products manufactured in factories also have a responsibility to ensure that the rights of workers are respected throughout their supply chain. We feel that most of these issues are re- occurring due to unauthorized subcontracting. 

We feel that disclosure of brand information is a corporate responsibility that can help the company to map its supply chain while non-governmental organization can alert these companies, if the factories are not following the code of conduct. But brands reject transparency claiming competitive disadvantage.