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Global Fashion Brands Caused Humanitarian Crisis in 6 Asian Countries During Pandemic, Says Report -Ditsa Bhattacharya

-Newsclick.in

Nearly 93% of the Indian garment workers were pushed below the international poverty line of the World Bank in April and May, 2020

Garment workers lost a significant amount of wage during the pandemic in six Asian countries including India. Workers’ wages were at poverty levels even before the pandemic, and were pushed further below the International Poverty Line in their countries by the pandemic, according to a recent report titled Money Heist: Covid-19 Wage Theft in Garment Global Supply Chains and published by the Asia Floor Wage Alliance (AFWA).

As many as 2,185 garment workers employed across 189 supplier factories located in six countries -- Sri Lanka, Pakistan, India, Indonesia, Cambodia, and Bangladesh -- took part in the survey for the report. Fifteen global fashion brands, including Walmart, Nike, Adidas, GAP, Marks & Spencer, Levi’s, and American Eagle Outfitters source their garments from these 189 factories. The report studies the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic-induced recession on Asian garment workers employed in the supply chains of major global apparel brands. It highlights wage theft as the most common experience and pre-dominant consequence of the pandemic-induced recession on garment workers, which resulted in a devastating and prolonged humanitarian crisis.

The report said, “Wage theft was not an unintended result of the pandemic crisis, but is in fact an inbuilt mechanism in global garment supply chains through which global apparel brands amass super profits through extreme labour exploitation of workers in their supplier factories. Wage theft is intrinsic to the business models of global apparel brands, who transfer the risks and costs of manufacturing for volatile consumer markets to their suppliers, and ultimately workers in their supply chains, in the form of wage theft. This was exacerbated during the pandemic-induced recession.”

The report was launched during an online event on Wednesday, July 7 in which seven trade union leaders from Asia and international academics discussed the report’s findings detailing the humanitarian crisis brought on by global fashion brands. All the trade union leaders agreed that in recent times, especially during the pandemic, there have been attempts to quash any and all efforts made by workers to form unions or join existing ones. In several countries, workers were threatened with termination. In Bangladesh, workers who tried to unionise and start movements had false cases filed against them.

Speaking at the launch event, Ratna Satpari, Assistant professor at Leiden University in the Netherlands, said, “The report captures different layers of power relations within these companies. The three actors that workers have to deal with and strategise individually and collectively - the corporate, state governance and power regimes - have been captured in the report. This is a highly important contribution to understanding social and economic differentiation and its impact on workers' politics.”

She added, “The report shows the different backgrounds of the workers - for instance, in India, 63% are migrants while in Cambodia 67% are migrants. Pakistan has 74% non-migrants. The report shows how the different positions of workers such as migrants and non-migrants affect their inclusion or exclusion and solidarity among workers, and how the company takes advantage of these differences among workers.”

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