Whilst many workers within the garment industry struggle within a system that denies them their basic human rights, precarious employment and unreliable contracts plunge them further into uncertainty and frustrating inadequacy.
For some workers, more flexible contracts can be beneficial. For example, many women find that homeworking can be a positive choice, allowing them the independence to combine homework with childcare and other responsibilities. However, homeworkers are particularly vulnerable to low pay and lack of benefits, and may often be paid per piece; which puts pressure on them to work unacceptably long hours. Homeworkers are often difficult to trace, and therefore will go unnoticed during audits.
Precarious employment also takes place inside the garment factories. Increasingly, temporary contracts are being used by employers to reduce costs, reduce rights afforded to workers and make the workforce more compliant. Furthermore, there is a growth in the use of contract or agency workers who are essentially factory employees, but whose relationship is with the middleman. These workers face lower pay, harder targets, and a more uncertain future.
In Thailand we visited subcontracting workshops supplying Tesco and Walmart. These workers rely on bits of work from larger factories, and faced some of the worst working conditions we found. Hours were longer, pay was lower, and many workers had given up and left because they couldn't survive. As these were cooperatives there was no exploitative management, but rather a collective understanding that unless they worked harder and for less, these workers would have no income at all. Workers at a subcontractor supplying Tesco Lotus in Thailand explained that:
"I worry about my security. I don't have job security because we are subcontracted. I am always afraid that I will have no money to pay in a month."
Some of the worst conditions are found where workers are employed by these labour contractors. Aside from lacking the safeguards of permanent employment, itself a step down, these workers were set higher daily targets, often paid lower wages, were deprived of benefits such as maternity leave, and were much more afraid of being fired for stepping out of line.
A typical female contract worker on the checking line in a factory supplying Carrefour in Tirupur gets paid only about 10 rupees (€0.15) per hour (120 rupees for a 12-hour shift), as opposed to standard local wages of 11-13 rupees (€0.17 to €0.20) per hour (€1.35 to €1.50 for 8 hours).
"Workers coming directly from the company will be paid more. Others hired through contractors will be paid less than them," said a helper at another Carrefour supplier in Delhi.
Workers employed by contractors and those on temporary contracts face lower pay, poorer conditions, and a constant fear that they will lose their jobs. This is not a question of a few workers brought in every so often to help with an urgent order; it is a systematic and spreading use of precarious forms of employment both to manage fluctuating orders and to further tip the power balance in favour of employers.
