Document Abstract
Published:
1 Aug 2008
How globalised production exploits informal-sector workers: investigating the Indian garment sector
Worker exploitation in India’s garment sector
Focusing on workers employed in Delhi, this paper investigates exploitation of informal sector workers in India’s garment industry. It looks at trends such as the incorporation of the informal economy into trans-national production networks in the Indian garment industry.
The rise of neoliberalism in the 1980s dramatically transformed the industrial practices of many developing countries, signalling the shift towards export-oriented industrialisation. Since then, the spread of globalised production has gone hand-in-hand with intensified exploitation of a decentralised, flexible and cheap labour force. Poor migrant workers are preferred because they pose little risk of unionisation. Generally, they come from rural backgrounds and are first-generation industrial workers. They are recruited and organised by tekhedaars, or labour contractors, and not directly by the exporters. These workers generally do not settle in Delhi but migrate back to their home states each year after a production cycle.
Key points raised include:
The rise of neoliberalism in the 1980s dramatically transformed the industrial practices of many developing countries, signalling the shift towards export-oriented industrialisation. Since then, the spread of globalised production has gone hand-in-hand with intensified exploitation of a decentralised, flexible and cheap labour force. Poor migrant workers are preferred because they pose little risk of unionisation. Generally, they come from rural backgrounds and are first-generation industrial workers. They are recruited and organised by tekhedaars, or labour contractors, and not directly by the exporters. These workers generally do not settle in Delhi but migrate back to their home states each year after a production cycle.
Key points raised include:
- while male migrants predominate in garment factories, the workforce employed in household labour for the industry is more diversified - embroidery provides a good example of such work, as much of it is done by hand and can often constitute half of the unit cost of a garment
- the Delhi garment sector is extremely fragmented: the number of production units totals around 3,000-4,000. In contrast, the number of exporters of garments - those who deal directly with international buyers - totals only about 600-700
- workers’ social profiles determine where and how they will fit into the global supply chain and how much they will be exploited - old traditions of social organisation, based on factors such as caste, ethnicity, gender and income status, have been wedded with globalised production patterns to provide a large pool of very cheap labour that can be easily controlled, disciplined and exploited.
