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10 November 2022 Maximum exploitation: The cost of the pandemic

With the outbreak of the global COVID-19 pandemic, textile companies reduced their orders and suppliers in the producing countries stopped paying wages and dismissed workers. Two years later, most countries have relaxed or repealed measures to combat the coronavirus. How has the pandemic changed the labour and human rights situation in the Indian clothing industry?

At the end of March 2020, the Indian government announced the first nationwide lockdown, which brought textile production to a halt almost overnight. The result was mass redundancies without sufficient income compensation. Due to the pandemic, international supply chains collapsed, in particular those of the textile industry. In order to limit economic losses, fashion companies suspended their orders. At the same time, most companies showed no willingness to pay for materials already ordered, but instead offered additional discounts.

Companies and their suppliers used the instability caused by the pandemic to circumvent national and international standards and to stabilise or maximise profits by further reducing production costs, such as wage cuts and raising targets for workers. At the same time, the pandemic was used as a pretext to close less lucrative or heavily unionized sites. Activists, less-performing or older workers were particularly affected by layoffs. In order to achieve the increased production targets, already established practices of gender-based violence and intersectional discrimination are also intensifying. It is threatened with dismissal, workers are thrown at with bundles of clothing, beaten or forced to sexual favors with the promise of better working conditions. As a result, companies made a significant contribution to exacerbating inhumane working conditions and gender-specific employment.