Poor Labor Conditions in Fashion Industry of India
1.1 Overview
India is the second largest producer in the world for textile and garment. This industry plays an important role in the economy of the country and it provides 14 % to industrial production and 4 % to GDP of the country (Textile Ministry, Aranca Research, February 2014).
The size of the industry is rising every year. Through the Figure 1 we can see that in 2011 the size of textile market in India was $89.0 billion and it is expecting to rise at a CAGR (compound annual growth rate) by 10.1 % over 2009-21, which will compose $ 223 billion in 2021 (IBEF, 2014).
As textile and garment industry is one of the largest employment sources in the country and estimated amount of workers for 2010 year was over 2.000.000 people, as we can see in the Figure 2, it is very important to look after the working conditions for employees such as working hours, wages and safety.
1.2 Labor Working Conditions
1.2.1 Wages
According to Martje Theuws & Pauline Overeem, the state of Tamil Nadu is the largest producer of cotton yarn in India. In their report, authors, concentrated on five mills: Best Cotton Mills, Jeyavishnu Sprintex, Premier Mills, Sulochana Cotton Spinning Mills and Super Spinning Mills. While interviewing workers to know if workers were paid properly, representatives from Centre for Research on Multinational Corporation (SOMO) and The India Committee of the Netherlands (ICN) found that it is not easy to determine if workers were paid enough or not as there is no minimum wage set for workers in textile industry in Tamil Nadu(Theuws & Overeem, 2015). According to the Asia Floor Wage Campaign, the living wage for India would be $200 (Clean Clothes Campaign, 2015). The minimum wage for textile mill for workers in the Tamil Nadu is $2.75 per day (gross) (Paycheck.in, 2015). Calculated salary per month with 26 working days should be $71.40, however, workers were receiving their money in cash in most of the cases and they don’t have information about gross wages. The only mills where workers are aware about their net wages is Jeyavishnu Sprintex as they receive salary through bank payment.
If to talk about overtime payments, according to Indian Labor Law, salary for extra hours should be double of the ordinary rate of wage. However in all the five mills, workers don’t receive the appropriate salary for overtime (Theuws&Overeem, 2015).
1.2.2 Working Hours
One of the major concerns of the workers of textile industry in India is working hours and overtime. For the minimum wages employees working more then appropriate time limits. According to the ILO Convention about working hours, working week cannot be more than 60 hours – where 48 are regular working hours and 12 hours for overtime. However, while investigating the mills, four out of five mill’s workers faced overtime problems. In Sulochana and Super Spinning Mills workers said that they were working seven days a week with eight hours per day; for Best Cotton Mills, Premier Mills and Super Spinning Mills employees have to work four hours overtime three days a week. If to count all the working hours of employees, it will compose 68 hours. Moreover, workers are forced to work overtime. All the mills in Tamil Nadu are working the whole year, 24 hours, 7 days a week. There is no law season and workers need to work same amount of time through the year. (Theuws&Overeem, 2015) “ It is always peak season”-employees of mills is saying.
1.2.3 Health and Safety
Due to the exposure of cotton dust, workers should be very careful with protection, as it can cause health problems. Employees have to receive special protective equipment such as dust masks, overcoat, aprons and shoes. But not only the equipment is important, all the mills need to have good cleaning systems and ventilations. Workers from investigated mills stated that it is very hot and dusty in their workplaces, which means that the ventilation and cleaning systems are not working properly. Moreover, employees of Sulochan and Super Spinning Mills stated that they receive protective equipment, but it is very difficult to get a new one if it lost.
Not only health safety is important, but also the emotional state of the workers is essential. Employees from the five mills highlighted that all the supervisors are male while production workers are mostly females. They stated that supervisors treating them without respect and making them feel uncomfortable and some of the workers are afraid of supervisors. “They are always unkind; they don’t treat us like humans” (Workers at Premier). On October 12 of 2013 year, Tamil Nadu newspapers stated that 17 years old girl tried to commit suicide at Best Cotton Mills. The reason for that was verbal and physical attack from her manager. Because of using her mobile phone, she was hit and verbally abused in front of her co-workers.
1.2.4 Child Labor
The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (1989) stated that all work which can cause health problems and all hazardous work is illegal for children under the 18 years old. This Convention was approved by India. The content of this Convention is voiced in two Conventions of the International Labour Organization (ILO) – Convention 182 on the Worst Forms of Child Labour (1999) and Convention 138 on the Minimum Age for Admission to Employment and Work (1973). Those Conventions are part of the ILO Declaration on Fundamental Principles and rights at Work. Due to the content of the conventions, children of 14-18 years are not allowed to work in a place where they can have harmful effect on their health, moral or safety. However in all the investigated mills we can find girls of 15 years old, working under the same conditions as adults: long working hours with overtime, unsafe working environment and unrespect from the managers. (Theuws&Overeem, 2015).
Business Law
“Labor Law in Fashion Industry”
E60.2
There are many different Aspects regarding the broad topic of the Law of Labor, Unethical Laws, Poor Labor Conditions, Employment Law, etc.
However this written paper will highlight on a few aspects of Labor Law, focusing on the underlying issue of poor labor conditions & how unethical labor law disembarks the media in today’s society.
In the Fashion industry, labor law seemed to be an understated issue that the media does not expose due to the sponsorship. What people do not know is that behind the fancy clothes people buy; advertisements are the driving factors for people to buy fashion goods. However behind all the advertisements for fashion brands, there are victims suffering that have often been doubtful; them fashion models.
“Headlines go away and people continue to buy without regard for where clothes are made or under what conditions” (Strassel, 2014). An article stresses about the new face of labor in the fashion industry that the fashion models are labors that often medias put on spotlight as a privilege; however what the medias does not focus on is how these models are being treated and this type of labor is being fashion disguised.
“The current trend for “size zero” and the rising profile and popularity of visibly underweight models and celebrities suggests that there may be individual differences in the level of thinness idealized in non-clinical populations” (Ahern. Bennert, Hetherington, 2008)
Ex-Fashion Model Ashley Mears published an article on The New York Times in 2011 stating about her experience being one of them 10 years ago and the stained fact about the modeling industry. “Modeling freelance work done on a per-project basis, models don’t receive benefits nor have control of their own condition and never know when their next job is coming… They are arbitrarily selected and easily dismissed” (Mears, 2011).
In a manner corresponding to the Convention of Freedom of Association and Protection of the Right to Organize Convention, 9th July 1948, San Francisco, Article 3: Workers and Employers organizations shall have the right to draw up their constitution and rules, to elect their representatives in Full Freedom, to organize their administration and activities and to formulate their programs.
However, in this case of former Model Ashley Mears the modeling organization that she worked for does not pursue this policy as any other labor whereas the employer is obliged to inform their employees (which in this case are the models) what they expect to work on in the future. Although “Employment At Will” where in the United States it seems to be legal for an employee to be discharged at any time for any reason; employment ethics should be taken into consideration which correlates to the organization’s morals. Mears also mentioned in the article on how Top Models are paid $1000 – $5000 USD while others are not paid at all.
Nonetheless, the Minimum Wage for the State of New York has resolved that minimum wage of an employee is $7.15 – $8.00 / hour as per 2009-2013 (New York State, 2015) whereas, if the employee reaches a maximum of 40 working hours /week they would have $8.00 x 40hours = $320 per week income. (See Figure 1.1)
The Fashion Industry has marked down their standards in terms of the age of the models. Some fashion brands such as Marc Jacobs and Gucci are working with child models under the age of 16 and that they increase the likeability in new market niches and controversial points of this trend regarding child exploitation and sexual influences that could be inappropriate (Franco, 2013).
Children models advertising companies nowadays are becoming more common and the use of child models attracts fashion advertisers because children projects an image of innocence and lovely feature witch according to advertising companies, captures customers attention and that the youth and genuine beauty will always be fashionable (Franco, 2013).
Not only that that some cases have caused numbers of criticism that children under 18 must be protected by their guardian and not to be exposed by the media in such a way, child labor laws should have been taken into considerations for these companies.
