The Hindu : Karnataka / Bangalore News : `Garment workers getting a raw deal'

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Saturday, Oct 14, 2006
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Karnataka

Karnataka - Bangalore

`Garment workers getting a raw deal'

Staff Reporter

Bangalore: Participants at a consultation on "Workers rights in the garment industry: challenges and possibilities" organised here on Friday focussed on the need for fair wages for garment workers and for organising workers' for collective bargaining.

R.K.A. Subramanya, general secretary, Social Security Association of India, said that in many large companies in the sector, labourers were not paid even the minimum wages.

Even though the Government had fixed the minimum wage, this would not solve the problem and that workers would have to organise themselves, and there should be collective bargaining to ensure that the garment workers got a good and fair deal.

He said that the Government should appoint a wage board for garments workers.

Hasan Mansoor of the People's Union for Civil Liberties said there was violation of human rights in garment factories and the Government and the judiciary had failed to address them. The consultation also focussed on how the garment industry had grown in the last two to three years and that the number of workers had also increased. Despite this, employment practices had not changed for the better for garment workers, he said.

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