Multinational garment brands have been questioned about their ethics as they are accused of profiting millions of dollars while the workers producing them in the politically and economically crisis-ridden Sri Lanka struggle for survival.
Netherlands-based “Clean Clothes Campaign” (CCC) has chided major international garment brands for not paying the workers in Sri Lanka who make the finished products for them by paying fair wages and offering support in times of crisis.
Sri Lanka is home to some of the world’s largest garment manufacturers with major brands like Calvin Klein, Tommy Hilfiger, Gap, Nike, Victoria's Secret, Amazon, Asos, Next, Marks & Spencer, Patagonia, Ralph Lauren, Tesco, amongst others outsourcing from Sri Lanka.
“It is paramount that clothing brands, which have continued to make profits from the labour of the workers who lived through crisis after crisis, take responsibility to ensure workers survive and can stand up for their rights,” CCC’s new research report says.
Their new research brief published on 2 March this year reveals “the state of garment manufacturing workers in Sri Lanka who toil for the multinational brands at their local production outlets” amidst the financial crisis and absence of robust labour welfare schemes at the workplace.
“(CCC) reveals that workers in Sri Lanka have not been receiving the full Emergency Relief Allowances (ERA) meant to alleviate their desperate situation in the wake of the current severe economic crisis in the country. The brief calls on major brands sourcing from Sri Lanka to take responsibility for their workers’ survival as well as their right to organise and to decent labour standards”.
Workers in Sri Lanka are struggling to survive in one of the world’s worst cost- of-living crises. At the same time, the clothing brands that profit from their labour is continuing to make massive profits. What are brands doing to support the workers who have made them rich-CCC has questioned?
In 2022 after continuous efforts and negotiations by the Trade Unions to counter the devastating effects of currency devaluation and rampant inflation on workers’ livelihoods, some factories agreed to pay Emergency Relief Allowances (ERAs) to workers. But allegations have cropped that the ERA has not been paid on time and in full.
CCC's latest research report has called upon all fashion brands that make massive profits out of Sri Lankan workers to support them when they are unable to sustain their livelihoods.
“Workers' wages were already well below living wage levels before the devastating impact of Sri Lanka's economic crisis. We are calling for all fashion brands whose profits are made from Sri Lankan labour to support those workers at a time of crisis”.
Sri Lankans have been caught in multiple crises since March 2022. Unending hours of power cuts, skyrocketing inflation, steep fall of the rupee, food insecurity et al have pushed the country on the brink of collapse socially-economically and politically.
The continuing crisis has severely impacted over 350,000 Sri Lankan garment workers and their families, causing job losses, unemployment, underemployment, salary devaluation, lack of basic commodities, hunger and dislocation-CCC report points out.
Trade Unions say the ERA was supposed to be over and above the wages and it is not reaching the workers. ‘Many workers have received far less than unions have asked for, had payments withheld based on conditions like perfect attendance or received nothing'
The report calls upon the brands to pay at least $ 30 per worker per month (Rs. 10,000) as full ERA to at least tide over the economic crisis they are facing.
The Clean Clothes Campaign estimates that workers were not paid over Rs. 61.8 billion ($ 300 million at the time of the report) in wages and bonuses.
Garment workers along with the Tea and rubber estate workers are the economic backbone of Sri Lanka and yet they pay the heaviest price for the current situation.
The garment industry is Sri Lanka’s principal export industry and source of foreign exchange, representing 52% of Sri Lanka’s total export revenue in 2021-22, and employs approximately 350,000 workers, many of whom are internal migrants and women, as well as the primary support of their families in the villages.
With political instability and economic crisis continuing, garment workers are expected to contribute an estimated $6 billion in export revenue in the current financial year.
As the revenue through the garment industry was so vital to the nation, the government ordered garment factories and their employees to keep working during pandemic-era lockdowns, resulting in mass outbreaks of Covid-19 in the industry.
The minimum wage for garment workers in Sri Lanka has remained the same since 2018, at Rs. 12,500 ($ 34.34) plus Rs. 3,500 as a budgetary Relief Allowance.
The fashion brand manufacturers are yet to respond to the research report by the CCC.
(The writer is an award-winning senior international journalist and World News Editor at the 'The African Gazette')