The Tunisian General Labor Union (UGTT) is calling on employers and the government to join with it in addressing the severe challenges textile workers are facing during the COVID-19 crisis and negotiate an action plan to guide the struggling garment sector.
Some 160,000 workers, the vast majority of whom are women younger than age 35, work in Tunisia’s textile industry, which accounts for 34 percent of the country’s manufacturing sector. Following the country’s coronavirus lockdown, workers lost jobs and pay, in part because the industry experienced a 45.2 percent decline in textile exports in March from the previous year, according to the National Institute of Statistics in Tunisia. Many corporate brands also canceled “mid-season” orders.
But crucially, employers also took advantage of the COVID-19 crisis to cease or suspended paying workers’ social security benefits or family allowances, such as food tickets, under the pretext of force majeure, union leaders say. Employers coerced workers, especially new employees, into signing fixed-term contracts and giving up their status as permanent workers. Workers also say some employers blocked their efforts to form unions to gain fundamental rights on the job, closed union offices—prohibiting workers from meeting in the office even outside working hours—and removed posters and other legally placed union material from worksites.
Habib Al-Hazami. Credit: General Federation of Textile Leather and Footwear
“All trade union activists and the General Federation affirm that the garment and textile sector in Tunisia has been marginalized and is facing a crisis,” says Habib Al-Hazami, general secretary of the General Federation of Textile, Leather, and Footwear.
In April, the Tunisian General Labor Union (UGTT) and the Tunisian Federation for Industry and Trade entered into a landmark agreement on workers’ wages, including textile workers’ wages. The government agreed to contribute $73 per worker, with the remaining salary paid by employer. Employers also agreed to register unregistered workers with the National Social Security Fund within a month after the agreement to ensure they are eligible for social benefits.
Although the lockdown ended June 27 and many factories resumed nearly full production, union leaders say worker rights’ violations persist, with factories not following government regulations to slow the spread of the novel coronavirus.
In calling for discussions with employers and the government, UGTT is seeking to:
Strengthen job security for garment and textile workers by reducing short-term contracts and increasing formal employment.
Examine how best to restructure the sector with a focus on ethical market competition so workers do not bear the brunt of corporate brands’ rush for products at the lowest cost.
Take urgent steps to end gender-based violence and harassment at work and ensure decent working conditions.
Increase workplace inspections to monitor potential safety and health violations.
Create space for workers to form and join unions so they have a voice on the job.
In the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, millions of migrant workers have been forced to return to their homes or are languishing in their destination countries without jobs, and Nepali migrant workers are no exception.
In 2019, Nepal’s Department of Foreign Employment issued 236,208 labor permits for migrant workers, 8.5 percent of which were issued to women. As the pandemic spread, work in major destination countries for Nepali workers in Kuwait, Malaysia, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates also came to a halt. Sudden job loss and pay cuts pushed migrant workers into precarious positions. The government’s decision to cancel all international flights to contain the spread of the virus added to their stress and uncertainty. The nationwide lockdown began March 24.
After more than two months, the Nepal government’s repatriation plan came into force. The government arranged to hold returning migrant workers in quarantine centers in Kathmandu until their respective provinces arranged departure to their home districts. On the first repatriation flight, 306 women, all previously working as domestic workers and granted amnesty by the Kuwaiti government, landed in Nepal in June.
Bijaya Rai Shrestha, founder and chairperson of Aaprabasi Mahila Kamdar Samuha (Returnee Migrant Women Workers Group, AMKAS) in Nepal, knew she had to help. “I could hear my inner self telling me that I have to step up to do my part to support these sisters,” she says. The first flight from Kuwait landed while AMKAS was navigating the procedures and formalities to get authorization to host returnees at its shelter. After 12 hours, they received approval—and later that evening, they were notified 10 women were headed their way. The shelter has capacity for 15 women following quarantine procedures.
Reaching Migrant Workers and Relating to Their Pain
AMKAS—created, led by, and working for migrant workers to make migration safe and dignified—advocates for the rights of migrant women workers and provides them with a variety of services. It is a Solidarity Center partner.
“On the first day, around 8 p.m., I received the message that 10 sisters from Kuwait would be brought to our shelter. I had no clue that they would come that late. My team had already gone home. I could no way to request that they postpone bringing the sisters the following morning. I still remember in my quivering voice I said, ‘Yes, please bring them!’” she says. That night, Bijaya booked a hotel near the shelter so the women had a place for the evening. They came to the shelter the following day. Despite insufficient resources to support the influx of women, Bijaya says the humanitarian need outweighed the obstacles.
Complicating the return and reintegration of the workers is the stigmatization that they might be virus carriers. Her landlord wanted her to move operations. He sent the police, then the Nepal Army, but their paperwork was in order. The soldiers, she says, “thanked us for the work that we are doing and requested the neighbors to extend their cooperation to us.”
AMKAS has successfully hosted 109 women in different groups. The organization books other returning women into a hotel near the shelter.
I was also a migrant worker,” Bijaya recalls. “From the beginning of the pandemic, I could relate to the pain that thousands of women were going through. She adds, almost all women who we hosted were not paid for up to six months. Returnees must cover the cost of travel to their home district.
Chandra Maya BK, a returnee migrant from Kuwait says, “I do not have the 1,500 rupees (approximately $13) to return to my home district. This explains how much I wish to get my six months pay that is due. At the shelter, I learned that the government has some loan provisions and legal aid facilities for us. Help me get my pay, I can start something on my own.”
At present, the shelter is at capacity with returned workers waiting out their 15-day quarantine [and test results]. The organization also serves other returned migrant workers for whom AMAKS helped find positions but who are also jobless because of the pandemic.
“We couldn’t leave them to survive on their own,” says Bijaya. “Masks are in need, so we managed to provide 30 returned workers with virtual mask-making training. After the training during those strict lockdown days, we delivered sewing machines along with the raw materials to all of them,” she says. The women are making masks and AMKAS is helping them sell them online.
AMKAS is planning an awareness program covering various aspects of the government’s reintegration provisions, legal aid, migration cycle and trafficking at the shelter and also at the community level, with support from the Solidarity Center.
More than 2,000 garment workers in Bangladesh are celebrating a new collective bargaining agreement that includes a 10 percent pay increase—double the amount required by law—and creation of a committee to prevent violence and harassment on the job. The pact, negotiated by the Hop Lun Apparels Ltd. Sommilito Sramik Union (HLALSSU), is retroactive to January.
The new agreement comes as many garment workers in Bangladesh and around the world are being laid off without pay because major fashion brands are canceling orders due to lack of demand during the novel coronavirus pandemic.
2,000+ Bangladesh garment workers have new contract that includes a 10 percent wage increase and a day care facility for their children. Credit: SGSF
“The guarantee of promotions for women to the higher posts and the establishment of the sexual harassment committee will empower the women and provide safeguards against sexual abuse and harassment in our factory,” says Aklima HLALSSU president.
Under the new contract, Hop Lun will set up a day care facility for workers’ children younger than age six, who will be guaranteed quality care and education. Factory management will provide free ultrasound tests for all pregnant workers, subsided food in the factory canteen, and guarantee a minimum of 20 women workers will be promoted annually.
Under Bangladesh law, women workers are entitled to 16 weeks’ maternity leave, yet employers often do not grant garment workers the required leave. The new contract provides enforcement of the law.
“It is because we have a strong union that we could maintain a good relation with the factory management and sign this collective bargaining agreement,” says Sommilito Garments Sramik Federation (SGSF) General Secretary Nahidul Hasan Nayan. “That is why, during this COVID-19 crisis, Hop Lun factory maintained the highest standard of safety for its workers and has provided each and every employee with proper protective equipment.”
The contract also includes provisions to streamline union representation, with the employer providing space for a union office and automatically deducting union dues. Union leaders will be involved in trainings and workshops and joint meetings with management.
Workers at the Myan Mode garment factory in Myanmar (Burma) are celebrating the return to the job of many recently fired union members.
Following a two-month fight against the factory’s attempt to use COVID-19 to destroy their union, they won an agreement May 30 that immediately reinstates 25 fired union members and brings back within two months 50 workers who joined strikes to protest the employer’s actions. It also guarantees the recall of hundreds of other fired union members when operations return to normal as the pandemic eases.
In March, Myan Mode permanently fired all 520 union members working in the Yangon factory, citing a decrease in orders due to COVID-19. Yet the owners retained more than 700 non-union workers and continued to operate the factory. The workers were fired minutes after union leaders held a contentious meeting with management in which they demanded an end to mandatory overtime due to fear of contracting COVID-19.
The move has been repeated around the world by employers seeking to use the novel coronavirus pandemic as a means to eliminate unions and weaken workplace rights. In a key provision of the new agreement, the employer agrees to not break the union and that “no discrimination against the union shall occur for any reason.”
“This was not an easy fight,” says Mg Moe, general secretary of the factory-level union, which is affiliated to the Federation of Garment Workers Myanmar (FGWM). “We wanted all our unfairly dismissed union brothers and sisters to be immediately reinstated.”
During negotiations with the union, factory management repeatedly resisted retrenchment plans that would not discriminate against union members. Myanmar authorities and global apparel brands doing business with Myan Mode failed to compel the factory to do otherwise, despite the company’s actions having violated labor law and the brands’ ethical codes of conduct.
‘Our Union Members Stood Strong’
“The central factor in our victory was that our members stood strong”, says Moe Sandar Myint, a union leader at FGWM. “Although we could not achieve full justice, the employer and the brands could no longer ignore our demands entirely. Our workplace union fought doggedly to win the survival of our union, and we now live to fight another day.”
The workers conducted ongoing actions to protest the dismissals, initially staging a five-day sit down at the factory gates but switching to creative uses of social media as authorities banned gatherings due to COVID-19 concerns. Their sustained efforts garnered international media attention and solidarity support from worker advocates around the world, including the Solidarity Center.
“We are also fighting against union-busting in other factories that supply clothes to the same brands that do business with Myan Mode,” says Moe Sandar Myint. “These brands promise to uphold worker rights in their contracts with their factory suppliers but we see little action from them to enforce those commitments. We will continue to struggle against injustice using strong unions in the factories and international solidarity, and will not rest until the entire garment industry is humane for workers.”
To ensure the agreement at Myan Mode is honored, the company has agreed to form a monitoring committee with a third party that is neither the company nor the union. The committee, created in consultation with nongovernmental organizations that include the Solidarity Center, will assess whether laws and company regulations are being followed as dismissed workers are rehired, and it will operate until at least the end of 2020.
While workers around the world scramble for physical and economic safety amid the global pandemic, some factory owners in Southeast Asia see the crisis as an opportunity to attack workers’ unions to increase profits and deny worker voice.
On March 28, the Myan Mode garment factory in Yangon, Myanmar, permanently fired all 520 union members working in the factory and withheld March wages, citing a decrease in orders due to COVID-19. However, the owners kept all 700 workers who are not members of the union, and the factory continues to operate.
The Myan Mode union is one of the strongest in the country’s garment industry, with a history of strikes to improve wages and working conditions. For the Myan Mode garment worker and its president, Maung Moe, the blatantly discriminatory firings send a clear message: “They want to get rid of our union, get rid of our voices, get rid of the requirement to treat us like human beings, once and for all.” He added, “They see the coronavirus as an opportunity get away with it.”
The firings came just minutes after union leaders held a contentious meeting with management in which workers demanded an end to mandatory overtime due to fear of contracting COVID-19. Shortly after, management announced the immediate termination of all union workers over the factory loudspeakers.
Workers Globally Fear Employers Will Use COVID-19 to Silence Them
With many garment factories around the world laying off workers or closing altogether due to the pandemic, many garment worker unions fear a spike in union-busting.
In recent years, employers have increasingly used temporary factory closures to break unions. In many unionized garment factories around Southeast Asia, owners briefly close the factory only to quickly reopen with new, non-union workers. Owners often change technical registration details such as the factory’s name or registrant to circumvent labor laws while maintaining the same core operation. The only change is the elimination of the unions.
With such a tactic already pervasive in the industry, garment workers fear that the global pandemic—with factories forced to temporarily close far and wide—will become a pretext for eliminating their unions. Myan Mode’s Korea-based owner did not wait for the factory’s full closure but simply cited the need for a partial workforce reduction as grounds to dismiss all of its unionized workers.
Garment workers stage a sit-in at the Myan Mode factory, using social distancing practices. Credit: FGWN
The Myan Mode workers, mostly young women from rural villages (Myanmar’s garment workforce is more than 90 percent women), refused to accept their dismissals. Hundreds of union members established a camp in late March in front of the factory gates, a common union tactic in Myanmar. Union members eat, sleep, sing union songs and otherwise live at the camp, sitting on the sun-baked dirt with nothing more than a nylon tarp to shield them from the hot sun.
Factory ownership has offered compensation to union members who accept termination and leave the protest camp. As a result, the union has seen its membership numbers diminish. A core group, however, refuses to leave for anything short of reinstatement. Nearly 100 fired union members remain and were joined on April 6 by 40 non-union workers, who elected to strike in solidarity.
Protest camp ranks have also been reinforced by workers from nearby garment factories who are members of the same union federation, the Federation of Garment Workers Myanmar (FGWM). So far, the union has chosen not to physically block the factory gates to shut down production, another common tactic in the country. A swarm of security around the factory patrols to intimidate union leaders from doing so, and many of Myan Mode’s union leaders already face legal charges from assisting strikes at other unionized factories in recent months.
After five days of sit-down protests, factory ownership finally agreed to negotiate with the union, but has refused to reinstate the fired workers.
Undeterred, the protest continues, and union leaders have begun reaching out to high-profile European brands whose goods are produced at the factory. The protesters recently traveled en masse to both the Korean consulate and the Myanmar labor conciliation office to push for reinstatement.
On April 3, the factory owner finally agreed to pay the dismissed workers their March salaries. But many union members continue to sit firmly in front of the factory gates to demand reinstatement.
“If we don’t win our jobs back, I don’t know how we can feed ourselves or our families back in our home villages,” says Moe, the union president. “If we don’t protect the union at the factory, the wages won’t be enough, the workload will destroy our bodies, and there will be no safety protections. There’s no future for us without the union.”
Employers Target Union for Improving Working Conditions
The minimum wage for garment workers in Myanmar is roughly $3.50 per day. Myan Mode workers, through several hard-fought strikes, won a union-negotiated agreement that provides for approximately $4.75 per day. A typical one-bedroom apartment in Myanmar industrial areas costs roughly $100 per month. The notorious dormitories employers frequently rent to workers typically demand half of their total wages.
According to workers, the union is being targeted because of its recent success addressing egregious working conditions. “With the union, we have some rights and some freedom as workers, unlike before,” said Moe. “For example, our union won the right to ‘gate passes’ to leave the factory when we need to during work hours, whereas before we were not allowed to leave, literally locked in. We’ve also won more reasonable production targets, so our bodies aren’t quickly broken.”
More than half a million people in Myanmar work in garment factories, and a wave of strikes over the past year increased the number of garment workers in unions, to about 50,000 members. While many have hailed the growth of the industry as a sign of Myanmar’s economic development, harsh poverty persists: Myanmar’s minimum wage is near the lowest in Asia, life expectancy is the lowest on the continent, rampant sexual harassment is reported in the factories, and workers frequently live in company-owned dormitory-style slums. In a country with little to no safety net and weak labor laws, the union movement in the garment industry represents workers’ best hope of escaping lives in sweatshops and winning anything resembling decent living conditions.
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