“I’ve been in the apparel business for over a decade now. Yet when Covid hit the country, I was forced to resign from my job. Now I managed to get my job back, but my salary is not enough to support today’s cost of living. Even after so many years, I feel like I haven’t been valued at the factory. The factory owners hardly care about our welfare,” lamented Jayamma, a garment worker in Bengaluru. She was speaking at a discussion on ‘state inaction towards garment workers’, organized by the Garment and Textile Workers Union (GATWU) and the Alternative Law Forum on Sunday in the city.

Garment workers say their sector has long been neglected by the government as their problems are passed on to factory owners, who also don’t care about them. “Whether it was the review of the minimum wage, the payment of the Dearness allowance or even the many job losses during Covid-19, neither the government nor the factory owners cared about us . Our issues remain unresolved even to this day,” said Prathiba R. President, GATWU, speaking to The Hindu. Among the demands made by the workers to the government were those relating to the minimum wage, action to end the harassment of women in the workplace, the provision of better transport facilities, the improvement of working conditions of the ESI and the intervention of the Department of Labor when unionized workers are victims of violence. by factory owners.

“The injustice in the revision of the minimum wage has plagued the garment industry for forty years. Although the law stipulates that the minimum wage must be reviewed every five years, due to the negligence of successive governments and business lobbies, the average wage review has become once every ten years for the industry. As a result, garment workers receive the lowest minimum wage compared to all other scheduled industries in Karnataka, according to a press release from the meeting.

A ‘Forced Quits, Stealth Closures’ report that was released at the meeting spoke about how garment workers were forced to quit their jobs during the lockdown period. Of the 81% of garment factory workers who quit during the pandemic, 85% were forced to quit. The survey included garment factories from three clusters in Bangalore.

“Many workers reported that when their factory announced it was closing, they were presented with two options: quit and collect their dues; or not to resign and delay/lose their dues. This fear prompted a majority to resign without protest,” the report said. However, many of those who resigned during this period have still not received their due. A worker who was present at the meeting recounted how every time she goes to the factory to collect her dues, she is asked to come back two or three months later to hear the same answer again.

Workers who were unemployed during this period received no government assistance. Another report “Garment Workers, COVID-19 Pandemic and Lockdown” which surveyed garment workers from southern parts of Karnataka, said 60% of respondents said they received no assistance from the government during the pandemic.

“There is a lot of precariousness that forces us not to come to the front line to solve our problems. The reason we usually leave organizations after a few years is fear of uncertainty. The owners often put us in a situation that makes us uncomfortable, but we cannot question them or other authorities in the organization,” Ms. Prathibha said.

Among the demands made by the workers to the government were those relating to the minimum wage, action to end the harassment of women in the workplace, the provision of better transport facilities, the improvement of working conditions of the ESI and the intervention of the Department of Labor when unionized workers are victims of violence. by factory owners.

Jayanagar MP Sowmya Reddy, responding to workers’ demands, demanded that the minimum wage be increased immediately and that the government take action to prevent all forms of harassment against women, including sexual harassment in the workplace. of work.