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Are Women Workers dispensable in GarmentIndustry?

By J.N.Vohra, B.Tech (Text.), M.Tech, F.I.E., C.Eng (I), LMIMA

The report on the Task Force on MSMEs set up by Union Government of India notedthat India has the advantage of a large pool of human resources, however, the industrycontinues to face deficit in manpower possessing the right skills for manufacturing,service, marketing, etc. Although SME sector employs substantial manpower, theretention of workmen continues to be the issue.

The textiles and clothing (T & C) industry is labour intensive. The T & C sector contributes 4% towards National GDP and 12% of export earnings. This sector employs 35 million workmen. Over the years, developed countries have been shifting

their garment production bases and outsourcing centres to developing countries, manyof them have put up their camps in India also.

Significantly, Union Development Budget 2010-11 of India declared to launch anextensive skill development programme in the textile and garment sector byleveraging the strength of existing institutions under Textile Ministry to train 30 Lakh

persons over 5 years under the programme. The proposed Skills DevelopmentProgramme for textiles and garments sector would provide long-term benefit to thetextile industry, which has been facing shortage of skilled labour since the last fewyears.

Productivity and Quality

The quality standards of developed world are stringent and in view of globalisation of the markets they require the products at competitive prices and at fixed deliveryschedules. In order to meet these requirements, not only the management of thefactories, but also the shop floor level work force required to be skilled to meetinternational business practices. International Buyers will come to those who will beable to give advantage of lower wages, higher Labour productivity and quicker response to their demand.

A study on the productivity of the garment sector shows that there is considerablescope for improvement, particularly, in aspect of labour productivity. It has beenfound that, workers working on conventional equipments require upgrading their skills to cope up with the technological changes taking place in the garment industry.Due to lack of proper training and development of skills, many garmentmanufacturers have restricted their outputs on low value added products.

Bias towards women workers

The advanced machines require more skilled and knowledge operators; besides other

things this may be the reason why there may be a prejudice toward employing menrather than women in the garment industry in India. In other garment producing

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countries in Asia, large numbers of women are employed. For example in Bangladeshwomen count for 90%, similarly in Cambodia 85%, Sri Lanka 80% and in China70%. The average of women working in Indian garment industry is less than 40%.

Ludhiana (Punjab) garment

industry is male dominated andmore than 40% of the labour force is migratory. Lately due to

National Rural employmentGuarantee Act (NREGA),industry suffered shortage of workforce during peak season.

Majority of workers in thegarment factories, especially in Bangalore comprising of 93 per cent, come from therural areas. Despite the fact that a large number of female employees work in thegarment sector, men still have the upper hand. As a result, it becomes very difficultfor women to express their needs. It is unfortunate that in many factories femalelabour are still underpaid compared to male labours for similar jobs.

Employers generally assume women to be less productive than men and hence offer lower wages to women under time rates. Whereas, it has been seen that under piecerate work, where wages earned match productivity, women workers receive wagesequivalent to their counterpart male workers for the same work performed. It has beenfound that women are at an advantage in some kinds of work, work that could betermed female advantageous, such as assembly line stitching, hemming,embroidery, labelling, packing, where if men were to be substituted, there would

probably be loss in productivity.

Empowering Women

In India, Punjabi women, known for their robust health, have the lowest share inworkforce in all industry segments with participation rate of about 8 percent, as per anestimate. Andhra Pradesh has approximately 35 per cent, Arunachal Pradesh 38 per cent, Himachal Pradesh 34 and Haryana had 12 per cent share.

Now some companies inLudhiana are encouraginghiring of female workers,especially young girls fromrural backgrounds. The youngwomen come to work in thefactories to save money for their future, including their dowries, and to support their families. Women feelempowered by their earnings

and attain confidence and self esteem as income earners. Some of these women may

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be young and living away from home, the employers and the community should look favourably the public image of women workers.

Unfortunately, women workers generally suffer from gender subordination to largelymale employers and managers in a system that considers women workers as

dispensable labour. Similarly, for upward mobility in the labour hierarchy of factories,female workers generally stand few opportunities.

It is essential that special consideration in various aspects need to be taken wheremost of the garment sector workforce is female. Some of these aspects are regulationof work hours, overtimes extending to late hours in the night, health and safety,

provision for maternity leaves, female doctors at work places and handling issues of sexual harassment.