Femnet e.V.

The garment industry is Turkey’s second largest industry, responsible for a large proportion of total export, with the European Union (EU) as the biggest purchaser. Although the industry is familiar with international workplace standards as well as the audits of international buyers, improvements are still needed in many aspects of its labour conditions. Small and medium-sized factories with a wide sub-contractor chain dominate the industry, with the working conditions deteriorating throughout the supply chain.

This country study examines the situation in Turkey in 2017, using statistics from that year and previous years. Where relevant, current information from 2018 has been included.

Mehr Details

This paper examines the application of human rights due diligence in the area of wages. In order to wage compliance to be achieved and for wages to improve, both a greater transparency in cost price negotiations between apparel buyers and their suppliers, and a precise determination of the labour component must take place.

Mehr Details

This discussion paper is designed to explore the relationships between productivity, efficiency and living wages, and to locate productivity and efficiency gains within the larger universe of options for funding living wages. It begins with a basic overview of how productivity and efficiency interact in the garment industry. It then outlines the potential effects of productivity drives on both costs and workers and discusses the importance of negotiating with workers on how to manage the potential negative impacts of productivity increases.

This paper is written for a variety of readers who are involved with work on living wages, but who may not normally deal with productivity, efficiency or product pricing as part of their everyday work, including CSR managers, trade unionists, government policymakers or NGO staff, for example. This paper was published as part of FWF’s Living Wage Incubator programme, under the Strategic Partnership for Garment Supply Chain Transformation.

Mehr Details

The garment industry is a significant contributor to Indonesia’s large economy. In fact, it was the fifth greatest contributor to Indonesia’s non-oil and gas manufacturing export figures from 2014 to 2017, growing at an average of 1.1 % during that period. It is also an important source of employment, accounting for around 26.6 % of jobs in the manufacturing sector. The industry is affected by changes to economic conditions in the US and Europe, the major destinations for its products. It also faces the challenge of competing with other garment-producing countries such as Vietnam and Bangladesh, with costs including labour, affecting competitiveness.

Another challenge for the garment industry lies in meeting international expectations about the treatment of workers. Conditions in garment factories vary considerably. They are generally much worse in medium and small enterprises, which do not attract the kinds of scrutiny that large suppliers to international brands are subjected to. The industry has received a great deal of attention from international and local NGOs and trade unions, but there remains much to be done before the standards embedded in FWF Code of Labour Practice are fully met even in more compliant segments of the sector. In terms of labour rights, Indonesia has signed key international human rights instruments, including the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) and all eight core International Labour Organization (ILO) conventions. However, the extent to which these commitments are reflected in Indonesian legislation and in its implementation, varies. Like many countries in the region, it also continues to experience serious problems in terms of the implementation of many aspects of its legal framework. This core problem has led to issues with freedom of association and the right to bargain collectively; working hours and conditions, including the right of women to be free of sexual harassment in the workplace; occupational health and safety; and the right to a living wage. FWF will continue to provide updated information on Indonesia at www.fairwear.org and will update this country study on a periodic basis in the future.

Mehr Details

Today, the organisation of the global apparel sector is characterized by global production networks (GPNs) that link actors at the different steps of the value chain from production to consumption. GPNs in the apparel sector are usually set up and controlled by large transnational retailers connecting their suppliers with their headquarters and stores. Sincere tailors seek to increase their profits by reducing labour costs, labour intensive production activities are sourced out to independent subcontractor firms located predominantly in countries in the Global South where wages are low and labour organizations weak. After the introduction of the Multifibre Arrangement in 1974, big European and US corporations, such as Walmart, H&M and Nike established large and geographically dispersed networks of suppliers of ready-made garments (RMG), with Asia being the biggest sourcing hub. Although the emergence of an export garment industry has played an important role info steering economic development in Asian countries, it has been achieved at the expense of the millions of workers in the supplier factories. Governments aim to promote the international competitiveness of their ready-made garment export sectors and to attract buyers from the Global North by maintaining low wages and implementing labour laws that allow for greater workforce flexibility. Thus, child labour, extremely low wages, insufficient health and safety provisions, excessive overtime and high levels of pressure at work characterize the reality in workplaces in the RMG export industry in many Asian countries.

As a response, over the last few decades, garment workers in Asia have developed strategies of resistance to fight against exploitative practices and policies by employers and government institutions at the international, national and subnational level. In most garment-exporting countries, particularly in South and South-East Asia, the labour movement is weak and fragmented, with trade unions dominated by political parties. But the expansion of the garment export sector has also brought about the development of several labour unions in this industry, which, rather than seeking institutional power through proximity to a political party, aim to build associational power through a social movement approach. 

Mehr Details