Â
Throughout the garment industry, unacceptable working conditions make an already difficult working day significantly worse. In many garment factories, harassment and violence are not uncommon. Violence is frequently threatened or used against workers, by supervisors, employers, the police, state security forces, strike breakers and others. Workers are often beaten and sometimes killed for organising into unions and demanding better working conditions.
The majority of workers within the garment industry are women, who are particularly vulnerable to abuse. They are frequently subjected to humiliating searches, verbal and physical abuse, and sexual harassment in the workplace, as well as fearing assault and rape on the way home from the factory late at night.
Elina, a garment worker in an Indonesian factory PT Busana Prima Global, reports: "There is a lot of verbal abuse. Management calls us names throughout the time we are working. They call us 'stupid', 'lazy', 'useless', 'bastard's child'. They say, 'you don't deserve any better'. There is physical abuse as well. Our ears are often pulled, and managers yell directly into our ears."
At a factory visited by the Clean Clothes Campaign in Lesotho, women workers reported being searched (by women supervisors) every day when leaving the factory. Some women were forced to take off their clothes to show that they were not stealing anything. Workers from this factory have reported rape as they walk home from late overtime work, but management still refused to provide late night transport. Indonesian women workers report that
"pretty girls in the factory are harassed by male managers. They come on to the girls, call them into their offices, whisper into their ears, touch them (...) bribe them with money and threaten them with losing their jobs if they don't have sex with them."
Pregnant Workers
Women are also discriminated against if they plan to start, or already have, a family. In some garment factories, women applying for work are asked if they are married, going out with men, planning to have children, and using birth control. Some employers will only hire unmarried women with no children and some make each woman sign an agreement not to get pregnant as long as she works at the factory. Compulsory tests at the time of recruiting are common - women who are pregnant or refuse the test are not hired.
Workers who become pregnant may try to hide their condition as long as possible, resulting in poor anti-natal care and potential exposure to work hazards that can cause birth defects, premature birth, low-weight babies and other problems. In a Polish factory surveyed by partners of the Clean Clothes Campaign, pregnant workers hid their pregnancy up to two weeks before delivery. This means they were unable to access benefits to which they are legally entitled, but they felt neglecting the benefits would minimise the risk of dismissal.
Reported harassment of pregnant workers includes verbal abuse, higher production quotas, longer work hours and more difficult tasks, such as standing instead of sitting or transfer to a hotter work area. Philippino trade unions report that pregnant workers were forced to work overtime, including at night, in an export processing zone of Cavite, while a worker in another garment factory had a miscarriage inside a company comfort room after being forbidden to take leave. According to the report, garment factory bosses were also known to prevent workers from taking maternity leave or pay if they wanted to return to work after the baby's birth . The ICFTU reported in 2003 that while they are legally entitled to three months' maternity leave, Indonesian women workers had been fired for taking it.
Women Working for Change
Yet women workers are continuously challenging attitudes and stereotypes and are organising in various ways to defend their rights and demand safer working conditions, and an end to harassment and violence. Union organising workers in the Katunayake export processing zone of Sri Lanka, for example, surveyed women workers in the boarding-house community next to the zone. A common worry of the women was their safety going home late at night, as rape was not uncommon in the community. Together, union and workers decided that one solution was to get a bus to take them back and forth between the factories and the boarding houses. The workers and the union got the local authorities to buy a bus to start this service. This worked very well so the union asked the factory owners to buy two more buses. The women still worked long hours, but they were at least safer than when walking up to three kilometres (one and a half miles) between home and the factories.
Many women working within the garment industry would benefit from the opportunity to work together to improve their own working conditions. In many cases however, such an opportunity is unavailable.
