Exploitation

EXPLOITATION IN THE TEXTILE INDUSTRY
(Whin, Summer 1996)

SCENE 1: A hot, crowded and poorly ventilated factory in an industrial park near Haiti's naTional airport. Scores of young women workers toil up to 70 hours a week for less than 11 US cents an hour. Among the items being produced in this and other factories are Disney's Pocahontas pyjamas which are selling like hot cakes in the US. Each carries a price tag of US$13. Total labour costs involved in the production of each item is seven cents.

SCENE 2: More than 300 Pakistani workers, over half of them under the age of 13, cut and glue and stitch moccasins for export to Italy. The children apply the glues direct from large open canisters using their fingers as brushes. They normally work 12 hours a day for which the youngest earn less than lO US cents. They look so dazed from the effects of inhaling the glues that they probably have little idea of what they earn. The finished shoe sells for more than US$120.

SCENE 3: Near Maseru, Lesotho, 700 women sew sportswear for export to Europe and the US. Low wages, long hours and an extremely aggressive management are the least of their problems. The factory has one toilet - locked!

SCENE 4: A cold, dark carpet weaving shed in a Kathmandu suburb. At 9.00 pm it's a grim setting for the 40-50 children working there. The only adults inside are two supervisors. The working day began at 7.00 am; 14 hours later, work continues, having never stopped, even while the kids consumed two light snacks. Directed by the supervisors, the children are singing. It maintains the rhythm of the work.
  None of these real life situations is untypical of the textile, clothing, shoe and leather industries of the 1990s. Indeed, so bad are conditions in some countries that workers might regard these as mild.
  Today, some 160 countries worldwide are producing textile, clothing, shoe or leather items, the vast majority for export into the markets of only about 30 nations.
  The mushrooming of Export Processing Zones - the majority including the assembly of garments - has been a major stimulus to exploitation. Most are exempted from labour legislation.
  In many zones today, anything goes as far as the employer is concerned.
  Workers are increasingly hired on a daily, weekly or monthly basis. Wages are usually appalling. Hours of work can be 10, 12, 18 or even 24 depending on the order book.
  It is not unusual to find women workers locked into their factory when they arrive in the morning and not released until the day's work quota has been done.
  Hard luck if the last transport left hours before the factory gates are opened.

(Free Labour World, ICFTU, Feb 1996)

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