Bangalore's garment factories – a route to earning and emancipation?
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Version 0 of 1. For the last five years, India has toiled with the challenge of how to make an economic dividend from its demography. On one side is industry, where demand for workers must be met. On the other side is a young, rapidly growing rural population, poorly educated and unskilled, perhaps, but with aspirations to leave the drudgery of the farm, overcome social disadvantages and acquire the status associated with an identity card and a company uniform. The goal has been to create jobs at almost any price. Non-government agencies are paid attractive fees by the government to train, accommodate, feed and transport young people to locations where work is available but with few restrictions on the quality of the jobs that result. Related: India's domestic workers need a break | Lauren Wilks There has been a huge expansion in the number of organisations involved in skills training and work placement. Recruitment – traditionally a shady affair lurking in India’s informal sector – has become more organised, but the workers on the market tend to be younger, less seasoned, more vulnerable, and more frequently women. The government’s policy has been criticised in some quarters for shielding the subsidy of cheap labour supply to industry behind the rhetoric of “skills development”. But it is also lauded for putting more resources than ever before towards helping young people into organised employment for the first time. This means compliance with minimum wages, social security benefits and occupational safety, still relatively rare in a job market dominated by insecure, informal work. The Guardian documentary at the top of this report features two friends working in a Bangalore clothing factory, who, like nearly half of all girls in India, have dropped out of school before or shortly after doing their GCSE exams. Most come from poor families, and their parents expect them to bring in income, from farm labour or work on construction sites. But the availability of such work is uncertain and the wages can be as low as 60 rupees (90 cents) a day. Even those not expected to work outside the home face a life of hard domestic labour running a rural household, looking after a husband, children and elderly in-laws. Given these grim prospects, going off to Bangalore to work in a garment factory is an attractive alternative. But the challenge of adjustment is huge – as is clear in the film. The regular monthly wage of 7,000 rupees ($105) – far higher than could be expected at home – comes after long hours seated at sewing machines to meet production targets under close surveillance. The young women – away from home for the first time – must live in close proximity with other communities under the watchful eye of a hostel warden, who doubles as matron. The women experience new restrictions on their ability to move about independently and fall quickly into a monotonous routine between factory and hostel. The confinement of young unmarried women by their elders is common practice in Indian cities due to safety concerns. But country girls are used to greater freedoms. These factors often drive the young women back home, resulting in a dropout rate of well over a third in the first year of employment. The film’s protagonists, Banu and Bhuntu, and many others like them, leave before they’re done with Bangalore. Their regret is not only because of the grim alternative that awaits them back in the patriarchal family, but also because Bangalore is unfinished business; expectations are unfulfilled – but not fully dashed. Related: India's Missing art project offers stark reminder of girls taken into sexual slavery – in pictures Here, it seems to us, is the opportunity: to make Bangalore work better for these young women, to make the experience of employment closer to their expectations – of earning, learning, emancipation and growing up. The first step is to keep them safe and healthy. While factories tend to comply with myriad laws and buyer codes of conduct, this is not true of hostel accommodation. Some of the buildings leased by firms to house their migrant workforce have sidestepped India’s stringent construction norms, while most remain below the radar of global brand audits. But where else are the young outsiders to live when they come to work in Bangalore? Hostels are required but they must be checked for fire risk, water supply, ventilation, hygiene and sanitation facilities. The next step is to help the workers negotiate both city and job. How to read one’s pay-slip? How to get to the train station, book a ticket, cross a four-lane highway? What to do in a medical emergency and how to claim on health insurance? Where to get help in the event of a dispute with the company? Where to go on a Sunday without getting lost, into trouble or spending too much money? Then we must get to the third step: helping young women stay for longer in the city, have a second chance to sit school exams, and build careers. |