Changemaker: Nandita Shivakumar, AFWA
A young worker at her working station removes extra stitches from blue jeans. With grateful thanks to Claudio Montesano Casillas for the image. http://www.claudiomontesanocasillas.com/
Nandita Shivakumar is South-India Coordinator for the Asia Floor Wage Alliance, an Asian labour-led global labour and social alliance across garment producing countries and consumer regions for addressing poverty level wages, gender discrimination, and freedom of association in global garment production networks.
Bel: According to the Workers Rights Consortium, collectively global brands have potentially cancelled in excess of £20bn of orders worldwide from Bangladesh, Cambodia, Sri Lanka and Vietnam. Is this what you’re experiencing right now?
Nandita: The Covid-19 crisis is a crisis in textile production countries in the global south just right now. And yes, a lot of brands have been cancelling orders.
Across Asia, we see two types of situations: total lockdown, as in India, where factories are not allowed to function so workers have to stay at home. And partial shutdown - in countries such as Indonesia and Cambodia, where garment factories are continuing to work. And this is causing a lot of health and safety concerns for workers. They’re travelling in very crowded transportation facilities. On the factory floor, the distance between two workers is often no more than 50 inches. And the only screening taking place is temperature screening. As we know, [Covid-19 is asymptomatic for about two weeks]. By that time, the disease could have spread amongst the workers.
Bel: But there is a government order in India saying workers have to be paid. How much security does that offer?
Nandita: In some factories, no wages have been given at all for the last month. Factory owners are unwilling to pick up the calls of the workers. In some cases, wages are paid partially - for the time till the lockdown started, which was March 24th. In other cases, they’re saying they can pay you in 20 to 30 days later. Also, in some cases, labour contractors have advanced loans to workers instead of wages..
This has caused a lot of crisis and workers are going hungry. And right now, a lot of our efforts is to provide immediate aid for workers - rations in the form of dry food, clean water. It’s very, very difficult. In India, the shutdown may continue for another two to three weeks. The government schemes are not reaching out to workers, and we don't really know how to deal with this.
At the same time, the public health care system is not very much accurate to dealing with such a crisis. We are hearing reports, for example, that women workers not being able to access maternal health care, who are being charged exorbitant amounts of money to access maternal health care. And we've been hearing reports about migrants who are stranded and being forced into shelter homes by the government, where they do not even get proper meals or clean sanitation facilities. It's a multiple number of issues going on across countries. It's a very terrible time for garment workers
Bel: It's terrible to hear this. What can ordinary people in the West do to support you?
Nandita: It’s mostly government and the civil society within production countries that can really provide immediate aid. What we really want is for brands to honour their contracts, which is a discourse that has been going on for quite some time. We want them to come back and produce here - but we also want them to [provide] a humanitarian relief fund for workers.
We know that brands are going to most probably tell us that they won't be able to pay them because they are themselves having a difficult time - but these are brands who have made their money out of exploiting workers. It is the poverty level wages of these workers that have helped brands create so much profit over the years. So we expect them, during this crisis, to provide humanitarian relief.
We expect them to stand with their workers at this crucial time, and pay them at least one month's living wage. Maybe not immediately, but within a year,. All brands [should] come together and pay one month's living wage, so as to at least help the workers pay off the debts they have incurred because of this crisis. If people can call out brands and tell them to provide that fund, it would be great.
Bel: Many in the West are conscious of how the brands are treating garment workers and we sometimes ask people to stop buying from fast fashion brands. But obviously, that impacts garment workers. Are boycotts effective or damaging?
Nandita: Boycotts can be slightly problematic. It depends on the demands. What we need is a systemic change. We need to reduce the output of production and the pace of production. But it should never be at the cost of workers, their security, their livelihoods.
Bel: What would you like to see for the future of the fashion industry, given the challenges communities in the global south will face - in particular the effects of the climate emergency?
Nandita: We need to change attitudes around fast fashion. We should be able to say to brands “You can’t have 52 weeks of fashion. You can have four weeks or eight weeks of fashion”.
Then the workers can continue to work but at lesser hours and in better conditions earning, most importantly, living wages that allows them to take care of their health needs, their education needs and other personal needs.
At the same time, we need to help economies in the Global South transition away from being so export oriented. We need to divert [activity] towards producing what is most essential for countries like us, like public housing, clean water, public health care facilities. These are very important. Because, at the moment, our labour is being used to produce consumer products for the Global North. And that needs to change.
Bel: And it’s not just garment workers who are being affected …
Nandita: The focus has always been on garment workers, because it’s easy to link garment workers to brands. But when you talk to people who work in spinning mills, for example, things are much, much worse for them. There is so much bonded labour in spinning mills, so much child labour and we’re not able to address that and link it to brands. So the supply chain needs to become much more transparent.
AFWA has been working with its trade union partners in Asia to provide relief to workers, to understand the immediate needs facing workers, and to formulate a demand to fashion brands who must take responsibility for workers’ financial welfare at a time of tremendous wage loss. Through consultation with trade unions, AFWA has evolved a concrete set of demands to brands. Read the document here.
