The travails of garment workers

“The middle finger of my right hand is now permanently bent, after my hand got stuck in the spinning machine at a mill where I was working,” says 17-year-old Kalaichelvi. “If I had not withdrawn my hand immediately, I may have injured myself more – lost my fingers or my whole hand,” she adds with a shudder.

Kaiaichelvi received first-aid but her employer provided no further medical assistance, and it was left to her parents to take her to a doctor for treatment. Although the treatment was very expensive, she got no healthcare support from her employer. The wound took around three months to heal, and she had to discontinue her job. “Even now, the pain recurs every once in a while,” says the girl.

Kalaichelvi, who worked for a year at private spinning mills and later at a garment-manufacturing factory in Tiruppur District, is the second daughter of a couple who eke out a living in the unorganised sector. Her 35-year-old mother is an agricultural worker while her father, three years older, assists sand miners. They earn Rs 120 and Rs 200 a day, respectively. The couple’s elder daughter, who is 20, works in a garment factory, while their youngest child is a school-going son.

Kalaichelvi studied up to Class IX before discontinuing her studies. The problem was that her native village lacks a high school and the nearest institution is not only 11 kilo-metres away from her house, but there is also no reliable transport available. Also, the -financial challenges the family was facing caused her to decide to go to work. She chose the textile sector because a cousin advised her to do so, but she wasn’t told about the problems she would have to face.

The work involved standing in a hot, dusty, overcrowded space for 12 consecutive hours from 8.30 am onwards, resulting in burning eyes, rashes, frequent bouts of fever, aching legs and stomach problems. There were no designated breaks for meals, relaxing or using the washroom, nor even paid leave, except a fortnightly day off. As her workplace was far away from her home, Kalaichelvi commuted by a bus that the employer operated. Her monthly wages averaged Rs 8000 before contributions to the provident fund and Employees State Insurance Schemes were deducted. After a three-month break to recover from the injury at the spinning mill, she joined a knitwear manufacturing factory where the working conditions were slightly better, although the supervisors there, most of them men, were harsh too.

A few weeks ago, Kalaichelvi and friend Satya, age 15, who also worked in a garment factory, quit their jobs to learn the basics of computers with the backing of SAVE, a non–governmental organisation based in Tiruppur that champions the rights of socio-economically marginalised individuals and communities. Soon, the girls will be inducted into a technical diploma course at an ITI-affiliated institution. “We are equipping the girls with alternative skills so that they can become self-reliant and also overcome their bad experiences. Further, we make them understand their basic rights and entitlements and how to access them,” says Mary V., program-me manager, SAVE.

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Being secretive about age is common among the lakhs of young workers in the spinning mills and garment manufacturing factories in Tiruppur, Dindigul, Coimbatore and nearby districts of Tamil Nadu. Girls and women between 12 and 21 years old from socio-economically marginalised families are lured into working in the mills under what is known as the Sumangali Thittam – translating as ‘wedding plans’, these are employment schemes floated by textile companies to lure young girls into what is virtually bonded labour.

Recruiting agents promise them a lump sum of Rs 30,000-50000 (towards their dowry) at the end of a three-year contract term. Apart from the abysmal working conditions, they are housed in dingy rooms in hostels. They have to respond to summons to work at any time with minimal or no overtime compensation. They cannot contact their families or friends easily and are not permitted to go out much, except for a four- or six-day biannual unpaid vacation.

Hence, the girls fall ill or become depressed, needing treatment, and tend to leave before the three-year period, thereby losing the promised lump sum. Also, some girls try escaping from the factories or hostels, risking their lives or injuring themselves. And all too often even those who have the grit to stay the course find that the schemes that kindled their hopes are only empty promises. Many girls who are near completing the three-year tenure are branded as thieves or poor performers and denied the chunk payment.

Also called the camp coolie system, Sumangali Thittam accounts for about 1.2 lakh of the estimated 4 lakh workers in the nearly 1900 spinning mills of Tamil Nadu. Interventions from trade unions, courts and the government on behalf of the workers have been unsuccessful, as the mill owners are rarely penalised or punished. Also, most workers and their families are silent despite sexual harassment and abuse of the girls, and sometimes even their death, fearing backlash.
Workers from Andhra Pradesh, Odisha and West Bengal have minimal social networks in their work locations. Consequently, they lack confidence and courage to demand their rights, individually or collectively.

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The toil and travails of women like Kalaichelvi and others have been recorded on celluloid in Dollar City, a documentary by acclaimed filmmaker Amudhan R.P. The film portrays the realities of the lives of various garment industry workers in and around Tirup-pur. It contrasts the contented life of the elderly Vyjayantimala and her husband, who are home-based weavers, with that of their tailor son who is trying to migrate to a metro. And then there is a young boy who was forced to work in inhuman conditions in a spinning mill to support his family, before being rehabilitated. The contamination of the Noyyal River and the atmosphere by the micro-dust and waste from the garment factories are also brought out in the film – real life issues that must be urgently addressed.

(Courtesy: Grassroots.)

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