The COVID-19 pandemic introduced the acute vulnerability of garment employees to the fore, as attire manufacturers responded to the financial disaster triggered by this unprecedented public well being emergency by slicing orders and refusing to pay for these already in manufacturing.
The consequence has been mass job losses. An estimated 10 % of the garment workforce out of the blue discovered themselves unemployed, with many failing to obtain any severance pay and even the wages already owed to them.
These employees are in manufacturing nations that usually provide no social safety or security nets. They’re determined, ravenous, unable to pay lease or help their households. These employees are the spine of the trillion-dollar international garment trade and but these on the high, the manufacturers, are solely paying lip service to their plight.
The continuing disaster within the garment trade began in February 2020, when employees in Southeast Asia have been despatched house with out pay as a result of cloth from China failed to succeed in their factories. As wages have at all times been woefully inadequate, that first missed paycheque instantly despatched many households from poverty into destitution.
Because it grew to become obvious that there is no such thing as a finish in sight to the disaster, the Worldwide Group of Employers (IOE), Worldwide Commerce Union Confederation (ITUC) and IndustriALL International Union acknowledged the necessity for a coordinated response and, in April 2020, launched a Name to Motion (CtA) with help from the Worldwide Labour Organisation (ILO).
To date, greater than 130 trade stakeholders, two-thirds of whom are manufacturers and retailers, signed the CtA which goals to guard garment employees and producers from the worst of the financial fallout and set up sustainable programs of social safety for employees.
Whereas the CtA is undoubtedly a step in the suitable route, employees in want of emergency reduction can not anticipate its protections to be put into place. Furthermore, a number of the manufacturers which have signed the CtA are actually utilizing it to excuse their ongoing inaction.
When requested in October 2020 what manufacturers would do to make sure employees obtain their full wages, Michael Levine, vp and chief sustainability officer of Beneath Armour, which is a member of the CtA working group, responded that manufacturers “aren’t ready to make extra contributions” past the CtA. Nevertheless, taking part within the CtA doesn’t in any means free manufacturers of their duty to make sure employees are paid, particularly as manufacturers aren’t obligated to contribute any funds to the CtA.
The truth that signing the CtA doesn’t provide absolution from supply-chain accountability ought to have been self-evident. The CtA working group determined early on to focus their efforts on eight precedence nations – Bangladesh, Cambodia, Ethiopia, Haiti, India, Indonesia, Myanmar and Pakistan. This method not noted nations such because the Philippines, Sri Lanka, and Vietnam which, in response to studies from the ILO itself, are additionally experiencing mass lay-offs within the garment trade and missing significant social safety mechanisms. Many manufacturers that signed the CtA, resembling Primark, produce clothes in nations that aren’t prioritised by the programme.
Furthermore, the CtA will not be in a position to present swift options to supply-chain issues even in nations that it prioritises. Progress has been painstakingly sluggish. In an October replace, the CtA introduced “successes” in Bangladesh, the place the European Union and the German authorities dedicated 113 million euros ($135m) – a dedication which was not leveraged by the CtA, which solely unlocked an extra 1.8 million euros ($2.15m) – in addition to Indonesia, Cambodia and Ethiopia the place a multi-donor ILO initiative with funding from the German authorities made 2.2 million, 1.95 million and 4.9 million euros ($2.63m, $2.33m, and $5.86m) accessible respectively. No numbers have been given for the opposite precedence nations.
Even the extra appreciable funds Bangladesh acquired, in response to our sources, led to lower than 2,000 employees receiving direct earnings help. Arguably, with no obligation for model contributions and no corresponding figures launched, European taxpayers are paying for model shortcomings through authorities donations.
These quantities are woefully inadequate to satisfy even a fraction of the pressing want for reduction within the garment trade. Final summer time, we calculated that garment employees in Bangladesh have been owed $500m for the primary three months of the pandemic alone. We estimated the wage hole to be greater than $400m in Indonesia and virtually $125m in Cambodia. Globally, garment employees are owed at the least $3bn alone for the interval between March and June 2020. Not solely is that this an financial disaster, however proof reveals it’s additionally a driver for different labour rights violations, resembling union-busting.
The venture to construct up social safety in nations the place that is at present missing is of immense significance, however employees additionally want instant help. For this reason commerce unions and different labour rights organisations are demanding manufacturers publicly decide to a wage assurance and severance assure fund and guarantee the employees of their provide chain that they are going to be paid throughout this disaster and obtain the severance they’re owed in the event that they lose their jobs. For simply 10 cents per t-shirt, manufacturers can guarantee garment employees obtain the financial reduction they want now and in addition strengthen unemployment protections for the longer term.
The trade should cease hiding behind initiatives that use public cash to fill the gaps they’ve wilfully profited from for many years. As an alternative, they need to attain into their very own pockets to handle the problems in their very own provide chains. Manufacturers committing to establishing a wage assurance and severance assure fund won’t stability the inequalities on the core of an trade that has its roots in colonialism, however it will likely be an important step in direction of constructing again higher. Paying for what you owe is a baseline from which all else ought to develop – something much less is to be complicit in wage theft.
The views expressed on this article are the authors’ personal and don’t essentially replicate Al Jazeera’s editorial stance.