It was exactly two years ago, in the month of April 2014, during the campaign for Lok Sabha elections, ex-CEO of Infosys and Congress candidate for Bangalore South constituency Nandan Nilekani was having lunch with the garment factory workers in a factory canteen; but his efforts to garner their votes did not seem to have much bearing on the end result. Neither did he win nor did it change the ground realities for the garment workers in Bangalore. Now, with Tamil Nadu – another garmenting hub of South India – all set for assembly elections on May 16, the demands of textile/apparel industry workers are being highlighted again.

In Coimbatore, Tirupur and Erode, a citizen’s committee has been formed by a group of labour welfare organizations and NGOs to put forth and press for their 14 main demands. Even though the experts feel that textile or apparel workers – despite their overwhelming numbers – are yet to get sufficient political representation that might change things in their favour, nevertheless it would be good if any of their demands get fulfilled, at least for the welfare and growth of the industry.

C Nambi, Coordinator of the Citizen’s Committee has come forward with 12 organizations to clobber together a united front and press for the 14 demands, enlisted in a six-page booklet. It is also being said that this is perhaps the first time that adolescent and women workers at the textile industries of these three well known hubs have come forward to submit their demands ahead of the polls. According to Nambi, there was no representation from these workers to raise their problems or press for their demands so far. “It is our joint effort,” says Nambi, claiming to have already reached out to the concerned candidates of the political parties, who he underlines would submit the demands to the senior functionaries, in turn, in the coming days.

According to the booklet issued by the committee, their main demands are – restriction for employment, minimum wages for labourers, maintaining the limit of apprentices as per the law, cutting short the tenure of apprenticeship, monitoring hostels, and formulation of stringent laws against child labour and sexual harassment. The booklet further underlines that contradictory definitions of the ‘permissible age’ of children in various legislations should be removed…, and employment of children below the age of 18 in all forms of labour should be banned. It also demands that casual labourers, including apprentices in the textile industry be given a minimum wage of Rs. 15,000 per month; a percentage of apprentices in a factory be restricted to 10 per cent (It is being claimed by the committee that 70 per cent of the labourers in some of the textile mills are apprentices, at present), and the tenure of apprenticeship be reduced from the existing three years to one. Amongst the committee’s other demands are mandatory setting up of hostels (which has to be registered under the Tamil Nadu Hostels and Homes for Women and Children Act, 2014) for all those textile mills that employ women, besides putting in place stringent laws against child labour and sexual harassment.

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Apparel Online, which spoke with many from the industry on the demands put forth by the citizen’s committee, received a mixed response from the stakeholders. “As far as banning employment of children below the age of 18 in all forms of labour is concerned, the mills are already following the rule. The mills are also cautious about the issue of sexual harassment and they have committees that organize regular meetings and work towards bringing in awareness on the subject. Besides, the industry is also trying its best to ensure that not even a single case of sexual harassment takes place,” maintains Dr. K. Selvaraju, Secretary General, The Southern India Mills’ Association (SIMA) , who also refuted the claims of the citizen committee that there has been no representation from the labourers thus far. “There are enough platforms like the trade unions, labour department, district department, etc,” said Selvaraju, who is of the opinion that NGOs which have no stake in the industry, should refrain from intervening in its matters.

On the other demands of the committee, T. L. Viswanathan, Vice-President, (South India), The Textile Association of India (Coimbatore) says, “Mills are already facing tough times so the demand of Rs. 15,000 as minimum wage even for the fully skilled workers is not justified. Yes, I agree what most of the mills are paying to the workers (on per day basis) is not enough, so there should be a balancing act on that,” adding, “I completely agree that apprenticeship tenure should be reduced to one year as this time is more than enough to learn the necessary skills and work as a full-fledged worker. As far as issues with some labour laws are concerned, all the stakeholders know that these laws need to change or be updated, but they are not being followed or executed as it is very difficult to follow those rules.”

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