Femnet e.V.

Tamil Nadu Partnership Initiative

Tamil Nadu is one of the hotspots of the Indian textile industry. In the state's approximately 2,000 spinning mills, 80 percent young women and girls work. Nationwide, they produce the largest amount of yarns and fibers. Their working lives are marked by exploitation through blanket contracts, wages below the official minimum wage, excessive overtime, trade union repression, lack of freedom of association and gender-based violence. In most cases, it is not a lack of corresponding laws and regulations, but of compliance with and enforcement.

1st project phase: Raising awareness

One of the most serious labour and human rights violations, especially in Tamil Nadu, is the Sumangali or Camp Labour system, under which very young girls between the ages of 14 and 18 in particular have to do forced labour. With the Tamil Nadu alliance initiative, we fight against this and every other form of exploitation in the southern Indian state. The initiative, which we launched as part of the Textiles Partnership with our partner organisation SAVE, aims to achieve a comprehensive, systemic improvement of working conditions in the entire textile and clothing industry in Tamil Nadu. During the 1st project phase from July 2018 to June 2020, our SAVE partners are working on site to implement this goal.

Successes

In around 200 spinning mills, a total of 24,500 workers and 2,000 factory managers have been trained on labour and human rights standards and more than 240 grievance committees have been set up. In addition, regular exchange at district and federal level between stakeholders from government, business, trade unions and civil society helped to create more trust and transparency and to formulate joint action plans.

The 2nd phase of the project set new priorities

In November 2021, the second project phase of the Tamil Nadu Partnership Initiative started, which ended in March 2023.  In this phase, ten pilot factories per district were selected in order to be able to expand the training in terms of scope and quality. Independent people are also new for monitoring. They are supposed to accompany and check the progress and functionality of the factory's internal grievance committees and exchange ideas with the workers outside the factories.

Through the respective district coordinators of SAVE, a direct exchange between the modules "Dialogue" and "Training" is created. The district committees continue to be staffed with representatives from the government, companies and associations, as well as NGOs and trade unions. They set themselves concrete milestones to address the structural problems in the spinning mills and factories and to improve working conditions in the long term.

BI Tamil Nadu beendet

The project ended as planned on 31.3.2023. Complaints committees (GRC) were successfully set up in 31 spinning mills and ICC, committees that deal specifically with women's discrimination, in 32 spinning mills. The high number of complaints received during the project period should be emphasized. A high number of complaints is a good sign because it shows that the workers have confidence to submit them. This happened during the trainings in the factories that SAVE has carried out. Around 2800 workers, the majority of them female, took part in the training courses in 40 spinning mills. More than 2500 complaints related to women-specific issues, of which around 39 percent could be resolved. Around 7900 complaints were collected, which revolved around wage payments, overtime, child labour, etc., of which only 643 could be satisfactorily clarified.

Overall, it should be noted that it is a special challenge to become active in spinning mills, as the participating brands usually have no direct relationship with the spinning mills. It was all the more surprising that SAVE was able to conduct training courses in the spinning mills. Nevertheless, these trainings do not fundamentally change the working situation in the factories, as the fluctuation of employees is high and new training is always necessary. Training alone does not lead to structural improvement. This requires the establishment of effective works councils with the support of trade unions. However, most owners of spinning mills and factories resist this.